Properties of periodic multicrystal configurations in walk-off-compensating second harmonic generation of ultrashort pulses

This work designs a four-platelet periodic multicrystal configuration in the second harmonic generation of ultrashort pulses as a new walk-off-compensating device. It theoretically investigates a proposed active and a typical passive compensating scheme with the undepleted-pump approximation. The result shows that the angular and spectral bandwidths are proportional to the number of crystal pairs as expected, but the temperature tunability is basically unaltered owing to inter-plate pulse interference. At the same time, an analysis reveals that a misuse of the phase mismatch factor is responsible for a historic controversy about pulse interference. A real design of an ultraviolet second harmonic generation (262.5 nm) is considered in a passive periodic β-Barium Borate-calcite configuration, where the inter-plate pulse interference is found to form an azimuthal tuning restriction and to lower plate length tolerance. A subsequent numerical simulation with pump depletion is in good accordance with theoretical prediction.