Cascaded third-harmonic generation with one KDP crystal.

For KH2PO4 (KDP) crystal, the phase-matching directions of type-II second-harmonic generation (SHG) and type-II third-harmonic generation (THG) for 1 µm lasers are almost identical, i.e., at (θ=60°, φ=0°) around. Utilizing this special property, we designed a THG converter based on one KDP crystal. A quarter-wave (λ/4) plate was used to adjust the polarization of the SHG wave, and a round-trip optical path was used to realize the SHG and THG procedures successively. When the fundamental light source was a 1064 nm, 40 ps pulse laser, the maximum THG output at 355 nm was 1.13 mJ, and the highest THG conversion efficiency was 30.7%. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that the cascaded frequency upconversion processes are realized in one bulk nonlinear optical crystal. This method possesses many advantages for future applications, including high efficiency, a wide-working waveband, low cost, and applicability to many other crystals such as DKDP, ADP, DADP, and GdxY1-xCOB.