Wide-band Raman Stokes and anti-Stokes comb lasing in a BaF₂ single crystal under picosecond pumping

Abstract

We report on the first observation of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) in a crystal of cubic BaF 2 . All registered Stokes and anti-Stokes lasing sidebands in the visible and near-IR (up to the 41st order) are identified to the single χ (3) -promoting vibration mode (ω SRS ≈ 238 cm -1 ) of the crystal. The recorded very broad nonlinear lasing comb (more than one octave spanning) in BaF 2 opens the possibility for experiments on femtosecond waveform synthesis and other laser comb applications.