High-efficiency, fifth-harmonic generation of a joule-level neodymium laser in a large-aperture ammonium dihydrogen phosphate crystal.

High-energy deep ultraviolet (UV) sources are required for high-density plasma diagnostics. The fifth-harmonic generation of large-aperture neodymium lasers in ammonium dihydrogen phosphate (ADP) can significantly increase UV energies due to the availability of large ADP crystals. Noncritical phase matching in ADP for (ω + 4ω) was achieved by cooling a 65 × 65-mm crystal in a two-chamber cryostat to 200 K. The crystal chamber used helium as the thermally conductive medium between the crystal and the crystal chamber, which was surrounded by a high-vacuum chamber with a liquid nitrogen reservoir. A temperature variation of 0.2 K across the crystal aperture was obtained. The total conversion efficiency from the fundamental to the fifth harmonic at 211 nm was 26%.