Since its invention more than forty years ago, the Laser has become an indispensable optical tool capable of transforming light from its naturally incoherent state to a highly coherent state in space and time. The impact of this “optical coherence transformer” on the field of Optics can be likened to that of the transistor on the field of Electronics. At the same time, due to fundamental limitations, operation of the laser remains confined to restricted spectral and temporal regions, rendering it an inflexible light source for many applications. Nonlinear optics can overcome the limitations of conventional lasers by allowing access to new spectral and temporal regimes through the exploitation of suitable dielectric materials in combination with the laser. In particular, optical parametric generation, amplification, and oscillation represent versatile techniques for the generation of coherent radiation with unique spectral and temporal flexibility across extended spectral regions from the ultraviolet to the mid-infrared and in all time-scales from the steady-state continuous-wave (cw) to the ultrafast femtosecond domain.

The advent of novel birefringent and quasi-phase-matched nonlinear materials, new crystalline, semiconductor, and fiber laser sources, and innovative device design concepts, during the last decade, have led to the realization of a new generation of optical parametric sources with unprecedented performance capabilities and their utility has been demonstrated in many new applications. This talk will provide an overview of the recent advances in optical parametric devices, with particular emphasis on optical parametric oscillators (OPOs) from the cw to femtosecond time-scales. The talk will include a description of nonlinear materials, device architectures, and applications of OPO devices in spectroscopy, environmental sensing, life sciences, and biomedicine.

Majid Ebrahim-Zadeh studied at St Andrews University, Scotland, UK, where he received the PhD degree in 1989. He was a Royal Society of London University Research Fellow from 1993 to 2001 and Reader at St Andrews from 1997 to 2003. He took up appointment as an Institucio Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avancats (ICREA) Professor at the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO), Barcelona, Spain, in October 2003. His research in experimental nonlinear optics extends over 20 years and he has contributed to the advancement of optical parametric devices and nonlinear frequency conversion sources from the UV to mid-IR and in all temporal regimes from the continuous-wave to ultrafast femtosecond time-scales.

Professor Ebrahim-Zadeh has published over 250 technical papers and peer-reviewed communications in leading international journals and conferences, including 38 invited papers and tutorials and 9 post- deadline papers at major international conferences including CLEO/USA and CLEO/Europe. He has co-edited 2 books, including Mid-Infrared Coherent Sources and Applications (Springer, Germany, 2007) and has authored and co-authored 9 major book chapters and invited reviews in volumes including Principles and Applications of Nonlinear Optical Materials (Chapman and Hall, UK, 1993), Science (1999), Handbook of Optics (Optical Society of America, McGraw-Hill, USA, 2000), Solid- State Mid-Infrared Laser Sources (Springer, Germany, 2003), Handbook of Laser Technology and Applications (Institute of Physics, UK, 2003), Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. London A (UK, 2003), and Mid-Infrared Coherent Sources and Applications (Springer, Germany, 2007). He was the director of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Mid-Infrared Coherent Sources in 2005. Since 1997, he has been a regular instructor of the short course on Optical Parametric Oscillators at CLEO/USA and CLEO/Europe.