Determination of the coherence length in the vacuum-ultraviolet spectral region for the BPO4 crystal

An experimental system has been set up to determine the coherence lengths of nonlinear optical crystals in the vacuum-ultraviolet (VUV) spectral region by measuring the Maker fringes in the VUV region. Using this system, the Maker fringes generated by frequency conversion from 354.7 to 177.3 nm in the BPO4 crystal were obtained and the coherence length corresponding to the nonlinear optical (NLO) coefficient d36 of the BPO4 crystal was determined to be lc(d36) = (0.785 ± 0.002) μm. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that the coherence length of NLO crystals in VUV was determined by experiment, and the result could be an essential parameter for designing a quasi-phase-matched BPO4 device.