Solvent dependent characteristics of XeCl pumped UV dye lasers

The characteristics of near uv dye lasers pumped with short duration, 308 nm pulses from a XeCl laser are described with particular emphasis on the parameters influencing high average power operation. The solvent is shown to effect the operation of all dye lasers studied, particularly the photochemical stability. Measurements of the efficiency, as a function of the integrated pump energy have been made for a series of dye-solvent combinations. With the best combinations, average output powers in excess of 1W and conversion efficiencies greater than 25% were obtained at a repetition rate of ∼100 Hz.