Spectral characterization of second harmonic chi((2)) cascading phenomena.

The second harmonic generation in a thin ss-barium borate crystal is used to measure chi ((2)) cascading phenomena in the spectral domain. The harmonic generation is induced by two pulses produced by spectrally filtering a femtosecond pulse and centered at the wavelength lambda -Delta lambda and lambda +Delta lambda. New spectral components appear in spectral density of both the fundamental and harmonic pulses. High order cascading phenomena are evidenced. In good agreement with theoretical predictions, for large phase mismatch the evolution of the spectra demonstrates the competition between cascaded chi(2) and chi(3) phenomena.

Influence of cascading phenomena on a type I second-harmonic wave generated by an intense femtosecond pulse: application to the measurement of the effective second-order coefficient.

We have studied the influence of cascaded second-order effects on the spectral density of a second-harmonic pulse generated in thin KDP and beta-barium borate crystals by an intense femtosecond pulse. A noticeable evolution of spectral density is recorded for any value of phase mismatch. This evolution is in good agreement with the solution of the nonlinear propagation equation and allows a simple direct measurement of the effective susceptibility of the studied crystals.