Coherence and beam geometry of a superradiant dye laser

This paper reports the observation of a well defined radiation mode emitted from a superradiant dye laser pumped by a pulsed nitrogen laser. Beam geometry and spatial coherence of the dye laser are studied in connection with the pumping geometry. It is shown that under favorable pumping conditions most of the excited molecules radiate into the same spatial mode by stimulated emission. The associated mode structure is also calculated based on a model of a properly phased dipole distribution. The calculated emission pattern reproduces the observed far field pattern closely. Work supported in part by CNPq and FINEP.