Continuous-wave ultraviolet emission through fourth-harmonic generation in a whispering-gallery resonator

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate continuous-wave ultraviolet emission through forth-harmonic generation in a millimeter-scale lithium niobate whispering-gallery resonator pumped with a telecommunication-compatible infrared source. The whispering-gallery resonator provides four spectral lines at ultraviolet, visible, near-infrared and infrared, which are equally spaced in frequency via the cascaded-harmonic process and span a 2-octave frequency band. Our technique relies on a variable crystal poling and high transverse order of the modes for phase-matching and a resonator quality factor of over 10(7) to allow cascaded-harmonic generation up to the fourth-harmonic at input pump powers as low as 200 mW. The compact size of the whispering gallery resonator pumped at telecommunication-compatible infrared wavelengths and the low pump power requirement make our device a promising ultraviolet light source for information storage, microscopy, and chemical analysis.