The Levante Emerald has been newly developed featuring full automation, i.e. software controlled tuning. This is made possible by its entirely new control electronics, internal diagnostics, and Control Software packaged conveniently in a new housing. Hence handling has never been easier. The Control Software on the PC is equipped with a Software Interface (using TCP/IP). The OPO can easily be integrated into larger experimental setups and software controlled environments. The new Levante Emerald is based on APEs long standing experience in developing and manufacturing fully automated OPOs.

Because of the synchronous pumping, the Signal and Idler pulses of the Levante Emerald are generated jitter-free with respect to each other as well as the pump pulse. Signal and Idler are available at the same time¹⁾. Since they are coupled out of the OPO collinearly, the Signal and Idler pulses have an intrinsically perfect spatial and temporal overlap in the output beam of the system. The photon energy difference between Signal and Idler is continuously tunable, which makes the Levante Emerald an ideal system for multi-color excitation experiments, such as e.g. SRS (Stimulated Raman Scattering), or CARS (Coherent Anti-stokes Raman Scattering). Even more combinations of jitter-free pulses with different wavelengths are available when using a pump laser which also offers (preferably undepleted) green pulses at the fundamental wavelength.

The Levante Emerald with 2 ps (pumped by the Emerald Engine with 2 ps pulses) offers an optimized pulse width with maximum spectral bandwidth in the Raman fingerprint region without compromise in resolution for highest signal levels. Its high efficiency in non-linear processes makes the Levante Emerald with 2 ps an ideal tool for applications such as CARS (Coherent Antistokes Raman Scattering) and SRS (Stimulated Raman Scattering) imaging applications. Compared to the 6 ps version of the Levante Emerald, the Levante Emerald with 2 ps has shown improvement in CARS signals by a factor of 10, and in SRS signals by a factor of 2.5. Also signals of SHG or Multi Photon Fluorescence are much improved. The Levante Emerald has been successfully used for SHG imaging. Important wavelengths for MPE (Multiphoton Excitation Microscopy) are directly available, such as e.g. 950 nm for GFP (green fluorescence protein) or 1160 nm for RFP (red fluorescence protein).

Short documentary that travels the world to examine how APE optical parametric oscillator (OPO) systems are enabling next generation work in solar cells, cancer research, biomedicine, surgical procedures, molecular science, and more.

An OPO is especially suited for power scaling because it uses a parametric process for operation – compared to a laser process with intrinsic heating due to the quantum defect – where there is no intrinsic heat generated by the parametric process in an OPO.

The actual OPO Signal wavelength and bandwidth is measured by an internal real-time high resolution spectrometer, and the power by calibrated photodiodes. To tune, the user simply enters the desired wavelength into the Control Software of the OPO. For fast tuning over a certain wavelength range a sweep function has been added. It allows tuning from a set start wavelength to a set end wavelength automatically in short time, either with a predefined hold at each spectral step, or with advance for each step on a software trigger.

All models come with an easy to use data acquisition software, allowing for real-time data display. Furthermore, the TCP/IP-based standard software interface by APE makes it straight forward to set up remote control. This allows you, for example, to design your own automated measurement routines. Simply use our protocol templates for rapid configuration with familiar programming languages, including C++, C#, LabVIEW, Python, Matlab, and Ruby.

Combine Levante OPO with one of our Harmonic Generators to cover different wavelength ranges or with our Spectral Slicer to use narrower spectra for your application.