Dispersion anomalies of tuning characteristics and spectrum of an optical parametric oscillator

A theoretical investigation is made of the tuning charactenstics and of the spectrum of an optical parametric oscillator with a quadratically nonlinear medium. Anomalous behavior of these characteristics is reported for a number of nonlinear crystals and it is attributed to the dispersion properties of these crystals. The observed anomalies can be used to generate wide-band picosecond radiation (continuum) in the infrared range, and also to form light pulses of duration amounting to a few femtoseconds.