Developments of mid-infrared optical parametric oscillators for spectroscopic sensing: a review

Optical parametric oscillator is an attractive way of generating tunable mid-infrared light in the spectral range where lasers simply do not exist-for the needs of spectroscopy, medical applications, remote sensing, etc. We will go through the fundamentals of the optical parametric oscillator first and then introduce the related new phase-matching, cavity design, and spectroscopic techniques. (C) The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.