Second harmonic generation in the presence of walk-off and group velocity mismatch

Abstract

We study a second harmonic generation interaction geometry in the case where both group velocity mismatch and walk-off have significant impacts. This results in a frequency-converted beam exhibiting a pulse front tilt. Using the global response function of the crystal, we provide an analytical model that allows to predict the spatiotemporal structure of the second harmonic wave packet and verify its validity using numerical simulations and a simple experiment. Distinctive features of this geometry are the suppression of back-conversion and the ability to conserve the fundamental bandwidth in space and time domains. Subsequent compensation of the pulse front tilt should allow efficient generation of ultrashort pulses in the deep ultraviolet.