BBO – Barium borate

>10 J/cm2 @ 266 nm, 10 ns, 10 Hz | 190 nm - 2200 nm

BBO – Barium-borate (BaB2O4) has two phases:

α phase – high temperature phase

β phase – low temperature phase

β-barium-borate (BBO) differs from α-Barium Borate in the positions of the barium ions within the crystal.

Although both α-BBO and β-BBO phases are birefringent, the α-BBO phase exhibits centric symmetry, resulting in different nonlinear properties compared to the β-BBO phase.

Beta-barium-borate (BBO) is a nonlinear optical (NLO) crystal with a unique set of features: a large nonlinear coefficient for ultraviolet (UV) applications, a high damage threshold (LIDT), broad phase matching, low group delay dispersion (GDD) for ultrafast applications, and a wide transparency range.

BBO crystals are among the best electro-optical (E-O) and top-tier nonlinear optical (NLO) crystals. They are widely used for 2nd to 5th harmonic generation in many popular lasers and optical parametric oscillators (OPOs), especially (but not limited to) Ti: Sapphire, Yb: KGW/KYW laser systems, Pockels cells and other applications.