The anisotropic Kerr nonlinear refractive index of the beta-barium borate (β-BaB2O4) nonlinear crystal

Abstract

We study the anisotropic nature of the Kerr nonlinear response in a beta-barium borate (β-BaB2O4, BBO) nonlinear crystal. The focus is on determining the relevant ${\chi }^{(3)}$ cubic tensor components that affect interaction of type I cascaded second-harmonic generation. Various experiments in the literature are analyzed and we correct the data from some of the experiments for contributions from cascading as well as for updated material parameters. We find that the Kerr nonlinear tensor component responsible for self-phase modulation in cascading is considerably larger than what has been used to date. We evaluate the impact of using such a cubic anisotropic response in ultrafast cascading experiments.

arXiv commentUpdated version, comments on experiments from the literature welcome

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Experimental observation of long-wavelength dispersive wave generation induced by self-defocusing nonlinearity in BBO crystal
• Soliton-induced nonlocal resonances observed through high-intensity tunable spectrally compressed second-harmonic peaks
• Mid-IR femtosecond frequency conversion by soliton-probe collision in phase-mismatched quadratic nonlinear crystals
• Comprehensive Numerical Modelling of a Low-Gain Optical Parametric Amplifier as a Front-End Contrast Enhancement Unit