The terahertz wave has been attracted recently because of its wide ranging applications in various fields. Since the
appearance of a high power near-infrared light source, coherent terahertz waves have been generated successfully using PC
antennas, Q-switch Nd:YAG laser or femto second ultrashort pulses laser. Actually, however, there is no tunable and
high-reputation terahertz wave source. Then, we have been focusing on picosecond pulsed laser, because picosecond
pulsed laser has smaller linewidth than femtosecond pulse and higher-reputation than Q-switch Nd: YAG laser. In
addition, picosecond pulses' peak power can be enhanced in a high finesse compact external cavity to overcome the
threshold of terahertz parametric generation and oscillation, because the pulse is relatively small spatially, and the
spectrum is relatively narrow. Therefore, we developed a terahertz parametric generator with an MgO-doped LiNbO3(MgO: LN) nonlinear crystal in an external ring cavity for the enhancement. Moreover, the generated idler light was
recycled in the ring cavity to provide a contribution to parametric oscillation. As a result, we obtained terahertz wave
radiation at high-reputation of 80MHz.
We developed parametric generation of terahertz (THz) wave based on noncollinear phase-matching condition in 5
mol% MgO-doped LiNbO3 (MgO:LN) crystal synchronously pumped by a low-power mode-locked picosecond
Ti:sapphire laser whose average output power was less than 1 W in simple external enhancement cavity. Considering the
idler (Stokes) light made an angle of approximately 1 degree with the pump light corresponding to the noncollinear
phase-matching condition, we built the extremely-simple doubly-resonant cavity, which composed of only four mirrors,
in which the idler light was resonated as well as the pump light simultaneously without any feedback systems for the
idler light to reduce the pumping threshold of the THz wave parametric process. As a result, we obtained a broad output
THz wave at around 0.9 THz confirmed by Michelson interferometer and achieved the pumping threshold of peak
intensity of 50 MW/cm2. This threshold is, to the best of our knowledge, the lowest value of externally pumped THz
wave parametric oscillation.
The importance of the light source in the UV and VUV region has increased in industrial and scientifical fields. In
general, the second harmonic generation of near-infrared coherent light in an external enhancement cavity has been used
to obtain high-efficiency and high-power coherent UV lights. However, the pump light of the high average power has
been necessary for such high-effective wavelength conversions. We studied high-efficient and simple generation of UV
continuous and quasi-continuous waves by optimizing an external cavity and using a BiB3O6 (BiBO) as a nonlinear
crystal of relatively high nonlinear optical coefficient. We report the generation of high-efficient 389nm coherent light
based on the second harmonic generation of a mode-locked Ti:sapphire picosecond pulses laser with BiBO. As a result,
more than 500mW of output at 389nm was obtained with the maximum input of 800mW and a maximum efficiency of
63%. Furthermore, considering the reflective loss of output mirror of 389nm light, we could obtain 70% conversion
efficiency. This value was one of the best results of the second harmonic generation of less than 1W of average pump
power.
We developed a metastability-exchange optical pumping technique for metastable triplet helium (3He) atoms utilizing the 23S1-33PJ transition at 389 nm with radiation generated by a frequency-doubled cw Ti:Sapphire laser and compared the results with our results obtained utilizing the 23S1-23PJ transition at 1083 nm with a diode laser. We optically measured the nuclear polarization of 3He in the hollow cathode discharge cell by monitoring the absorption of a weak longitudinal probe laser at 1083 nm. This provided, for the first time, nuclear polarization utilizing the 23S1-33PJ transition at 389 nm.
NMR based on laser-polarized 3He gases has been attracted as a powerful tool for characterizing physical parameters of
porous media and then imaging human lungs. In this paper, the feasibility study of nuclear polarization of 3He atoms
utilizing the 23S-33P transition at 389 nm is reported in comparison with the conventional 23S-23P transition at 1083 nm.
The 389-nm light has been available readily with the development of various indium gallium nitride light-emitting
diodes (InGaN LEDs). In this work, the frequency-doubled light of a 778-nm CW Ti:sapphire laser with the nonlinear
crystal (BiB3O6) was used as the optical pumping light at 389 nm. The other light from a Littrow external cavity diode
laser was also used for optical pumping at the 1083-nm wavelength and then measurement of the nuclear polarization.
The nuclear polarization of 1.8% with optical pumping at the 23S-33P transition was demonstrated and then it was found
that the (23S1, F=1/2)-(33P0, F=1/2) transition was the most efficient transition of 23S-33P lines for the magnetic field of
1.6 mT and the gas pressure of 0.5 Torr.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging based on the hyperpolarized helium-3 (3He) gas has been attracted as a non-destructive
testing technique for the porous media and the medical imaging. In order to produce nuclear spin polarization of 3He,
optical pumping is the efficient way using a resonant line. However, there is no resonant light source to the line from the
ground state of 3He. Then, we have been focusing on the nuclear spin polarization in a discharge cell using the
metastability exchange optical pumping (MEOP) technique. We aim at the optical transition 23S1→23P0 at λ=389nm that
has never been investigated for the polarization. Therefore, at first, we developed a single-frequency 389-nm coherent
light source based on the second harmonic generation of a single-frequency 778-nm continuous-wave Ti:sapphire laser
light with a BiB3O6 (BiBO) nonlinear crystal in an external cavity for the enhancement. As a result, we obtained the 389-
nm output radiation with the high conversion efficiency of 56%. Additionally, we also demonstrated the frequency
doubling of a quasi-continuous wave Ti:sapphire laser for the optical pumping of multiple optical transitions.
Optical pumping is the efficient way to polarize a nuclear spin of helium-3 (3He). The nuclear spin polarization of 3He
has been often demonstrated in a discharge cell under the low B-field through the metastability exchange optical
pumping (MEOP) technique for a short time. Since the appearance of a high power near-infrared light source, optical
pumping with a circularly polarized light tuned to the resonant frequency of 23S→23P transition at 1083nm has been
investigated extensively. We, however, are focusing on another optical transition 23S1→23P0 at 389nm that has not been
investigated yet for the polarization. Therefore, we developed a single-frequency 389-nm coherent light source which
enables to optical-pump metastable 3He atoms via the transition. This light source is based on the second harmonic
generation of a single-frequency 778-nm CW Ti:Sapphire laser light with a BiB6O3 (BIBO) nonlinear crystal in an
external cavity for the enhancement. We have demonstrated very efficient frequency doubling with high conversion
efficiency of 56%, which is obtained at the second harmonic generation of 380mW in the cavity and is corresponding to
an efficiency of 81%/W, and we examined the optical pumping for the nuclear spin polarization and polarization
analysis.
A hyperpolarized helium-3 (3He) has been researched extensively for application in fields such as polarization analysis, 3He spin filtration for n (p, d) γ, and medical imaging. In the medical field, nuclear magnetic resonant imaging (MRI) using hyperpolarized gas is attracted recently because air space in human lungs can be monitored in detail by aspirating polarized gas. There are two methods of producing hyperpolarized 3He gas: spin-exchange optical pumping (SEOP) and metastability exchange optical pumping (MEOP). It is well known that the way of making polarization by the MEOP method is more shortly and more directly. In this study, however, the metastable 3He atoms provided by hollow cathode discharge are polarized by circularly polarized light. When 3He atoms pumped optically, the 23S-23P transition at the wavelength of 1083nm is leveraged typically. The 3He atom actually has the optical transition 23S→ 23P at 389nm, but the transition has never been used. Therefore, we developed the 389-nm coherent light source to polarize 3He gas by MEOP method. This light source utilized the second harmonic generation (SHG) of continuous-wave Ti:sapphire laser operating at a wavelength of 778nm based on BiB3O6 (BiBO) in an external cavity.
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