Optics Letters
Parametric oscillation in sodium vapor by using an external cavity
Junji Okuma, Nobuhito Hayashi, Akihiko Fujisawa, Masaharu Mitsunaga, Ken-ichi Harada
Abstract
We report on parametric oscillation in sodium atomic vapor by using an external cavity. Output powers of approximately 56 mW are obtained for both the signal and idler waves with the input coupling power of 290 mW, resulting in a conversion efficiency of 39%. The signal and idler frequencies are either upshifted or downshifted from the coupling frequency by the amount of the Na hyperfine splitting frequency, and the two waves are found to be strongly temporally correlated.