β-barium-borate (BBO crystals) differs from the α-barium-borate by the positions of the barium ions in the crystal.
Although both α-BBO and β-BBO phases are birefringent, α-BBO phase has centric symmetry and thus different nonlinear properties in comparison to the β-BBO phase.
Beta-barium-borate (BBO crystals) is a non-linear optical (NLO) crystal with a set of specific features: large non-linear coefficient for ultraviolet (UV), high damage threshold (LIDT), broad phase matching, low GDD for ultrafast applications and wide transparency range.
BBO crystals are one of the best electro-optical (E-O) crystals and TOP tier non-linear optical (NLO) crystals, they are widely used for 2nd – 5th harmonic generations in most popular lasers and optical parametric oscillators (OPO), mostly (but not limited to) Ti:Sapphire, Yb:KGW/KYW laser systems, Pockels cells and other applications.
This article comes from 3photon edit released