A quasi double-grating grazing incidence pulsed dye laser

Continuous scanning of a 1 GHz pulsed laser line using only one 5-cm grating as an intracavity selective element is obtained from a pulsed dye laser pumped by a Nd: YAG (8 ns-532 nm) laser. Such a single-grating dye laser operates in the same way as a real double-grating grazing incidence laser and provides an appreciable improvement of the resolution (enhancement factor 2), compared with previous grazing incidence ones. The superiority of this laser cavity has been proved for single-longitudinal-mode operation.Laboratoire associé à l'Université de Paris-Sud     

A pulsed dye laser with grazing incidence and folded cavity

A novel design of a transversally pumped pulsed dye laser resonator using grazing incidence in a folded astigmatic cavity is described. The stability conditions, beam waist and output divergence of the oscillating mode are derived from the ray transfer matrix for this cavity. A diffraction limited gaussian beam is obtained. The linewidth can be adjusted down to 610 MHz without using any intracavity etalon.     

A narrowband unidirectional pulsed ring dye laser

A simple unidirectional optically stable ring laser cavity has been developed for short pulse excitation. Using only one grazing incidence grating as a selective element a N₂-laser pumped dye laser has been constructed having a single mode spectrum of 420 MHz, clockwise to counterclockwise wave ratio 166:1 and a conversion efficiency of 4.6%.     

High power narrowband pulsed dye laser oscillator-amplifier-system

Construction details and operating characteristics are reported for a pulsed dye laser oscillator followed by a three-stage dye laser amplifier. The system is excited with 220 mJ of the second or120 mJ of the third harmonic radiation of a Nd-YAG laser. With Rhodamine dyes the output energy exceeds 55 mJ (9 MW peak power). Coumarin dyes provide pulses of more than 15 mJ (3 MW). Spectral narrowing to less than 260 MHz or 2.7 × 10 ^-4 nm at 565 nm is achieved by a single intracavity etalon of 37.5 GHz free spectral range. Gas pressure tuning allows a continuous linear variation of the laser frequency over more than 3.9 × 10³ GHz (4 nm at 565 nm). The frequency doubled laser output provides tunable UV light of narrow bandwidth (1.4 × 10^-4 nm) and of peak powers exceeding 3 MW.     

Two-wavelength single mode grazing incidence dye laser

Two-wavelength single mode operation of a N₂-laser pumped dye laser is described. The proper choice of a grazing incidence grating and highly selective cavity elements provided a stable operation of the laser. A single mode spectrum of 310 ± 50 MHz is measured and both wavelengths are independently tunable over the entire gain profile of the R6G DN dye.     

A narrowband single-mode dye laser

The linewidth of a cw-single-mode tunable dye laser has been investigated. It was found that the linewidth is determined by microscopic velocity fluctuations of the turbulent flow within the dye cell of the laser and by fluctuations of the pump power. The linewidth is further influenced by mechanical disturbances and by temperature fluctuations of the dye solution. The results of the investigations made it possible to achieve a reduction of the velocity fluctuations. It is shown that under adequate operating conditions the free-running dye laser has a linewidth of 2 MHz.     

A narrowband jet stream dye laser

The dependence of the optical quality of water and of higher viscosity jet streams on the flow velocity and the geometry of the nozzle is investigated. It was found that disturbing thickness fluctuations can be reduced by the use of thin jet streams with solvents of high viscosity and by working at an experimentally determined optimum flow velocity. The linewidth of a cw jet stream dye laser with a water-Ammonyx and an ethylene glucol solution was measured to be 9 MHz and 3.3 MHz, respectively. The linewidths were independent of the pump power.     

Thin-film narrowband tunable dye laser

We report a relatively simple system for obtaining a smoothly frequency tunable narrowband laser radiation. The action of the system is based on the possibility of quasiwaveguide generation of the amplifying layer inserted between two passive dielectric media. The retunable radiation in the wavelength range 570–610 nm was obtained and the generation line width was 0.01 nm.     

Nanosecond dye laser with a high-efficiency holographic grating for grazing incidence

By using a holographic grating specifically optimized for grazing incidence, it is possible to use an FP etalon in a dye laser resonator with grazing incidence. A spectral width of 4 pm with a power output of 31 kW is generated in stable operation. The influence of the mode of output coupling on the line/background ratio and the power output for grazing incidence have been investigated.     

Single mode operation of a narrow bandwidth dye laser using a single prism, grazing incidence grating long cavity

The single mode pulsed dye laser is an attractive tool for many spectroscopic applications. Long cavity tunable dye lasers generally operate in multi-longitudinal modes within the bandwidth of gain profile. Single longitudinal mode oscillation can be obtained by either making the cavity short enough or introducing an additional loss mechanism, in which all modes but one have a gain less than their loss. A new technique to achieve single mode operation in a long cavity dye laser, based on Rhodamine 6G dye in ethanol and ethylene glycol solution, pumped by a high repetition rate copper vapor laser, is reported. This laser, which operates in three modes in grazing incidence grating configuration (cavity length of 16 cm), has been made to lase in single mode by increasing the loss in the resonator through beam walk-off.     

Precise wavelength tuning of a dye laser using an active diffractive optical element

In this work, an active, reflecting diffraction grating was developed and characterized. A grating was holographically imposed onto the surface of a ceramic which could be deformed via the transverse, inverse piezoelectric effect, thus allowing active fine tuning of the grating constant. The tuning characteristics of this novel optical element were studied and the results compared with the linear theory of the piezoelectric effect. To demonstrate its applicability, the grating was installed in a dye laser and used to effect precise tuning of the output wavelength of the laser within a range of 220 pm. The possibility of quasi-static to high frequency operation of the system will allow this element to find use in a wide variety of applications.     

Operation of pulsed dye laser with an intracavity phase step

Effects of an intracavity phase step on the spectral and spatial characteristics of pulsed dye laser radiation are studied. In the broadband operation regime of the dye laser, the lasing spectrum was strongly, periodically modulated. In the narrowband regime, periodic alteration between TEM₀₀ and TEM₀₁-like beam profiles is observed on tuning the laser wavelength. Two different spectral periods of these effects are recognized. The shorter period corresponds to double passage and the longer one to apparent single passage of intracavity light through the phase step on a cavity round trip. Depending on the position of the phase step along the laser cavity, single-passage period, double-passage period, or a superposition of both periods appeared in the broadband emission spectrum and in the beam profile alteration sequence. These observations demonstrate several possibilities for the control of spectral, spatial, and phase characteristics of laser beams by simple intracavity phase elements.     

Achievement of laser fusion of biological cells using UV pulsed dye laser beams

This paper reports a successful achievement of laser-induced biological cell fusion using an excimer laser excited dye laser. To our knowledge, we examined for the first time the dependence of fusion rate on laser pulse energy, number of laser pulses, and laser wavelength. Maximum fusion rate of approximately 50% was obtained by this laser fusion technology.     

On the stability of the output characteristics of a grazing incidence grating dye laser transversely pumped by a copper vapor laser

The output characteristics of a high repetition rate pulsed dye laser has both short-term fluctuations and long-term drift. In high power high repetition rate lasers flow induced variations dominate over those due to other factors. In this paper it is shown by dye laser measurements that bandwidth fluctuations can be traced to the effective changes of the resonator dispersion due to fluctuations in the penetration depth of the pump beam in the dye medium. Short-term wavelength fluctuations can be traced to instantaneous deflection of the dye laser axis by the refractive index changes due to absorption of the pump beam. The fluctuations in both the bandwidth and the wavelength decreases with increasing flow rates within a laminar region. A copper vapor laser operating at 5.6 kHz repetition rate pumped the Rhodamine 6G dye laser used. The wavelength fluctuation of ±0.0035, 0.0030, 0.0004 nm and the bandwidth fluctuation of ±710, 132, 45 MHz over approx. 60 minutes were observed at 1.2, 3.7, 5.5 lpm flow rates respectively.     

自由电子激光器的掠射环形谐振腔

研究一种新型自由电子激光谐振腔结构.采用双曲面-抛物面非球面镜组合的扩束系统,使振荡光束在腔内口径扩大6倍.提高了反射膜层抗激光破坏能力.本文讨论了扩束倍数、非球面参量、谐振腔长度和掠射光斑尺寸等参量对光学系统像差的影响.     

A narrow bandwidth,pulsed, ultra-violet dye laser

A simple, narrow bandwidth, dye laser using para-terphenyl and operating in the region 3350–3450 Å is described. The laser incorporates beam expansion at a grazing incidence diffraction grating and is pumped by a rare gas halide excimer laser. Output bandwidths as low as 0.012 Å have been obtained.     

Generation of 250 mW narrowband pulsed ultraviolet light by frequency quadrupling of an amplified erbium-doped fiber laser

We demonstrate a high-power, narrowband pulsed source at 390 nm by two stages of frequency doubling in periodically poled MgO:LiNbO(3) and periodically poled KTiOPO(4) of an amplified, passively mode-locked fiber laser. With a frequency quadrupling efficiency of 5.5% and a 0.1 nm bandwidth, the 250 mW ultraviolet source is a suitable compact pump source for many entanglement-based quantum information processing tasks.     

Photoacoustic detection of two photon absorption in formaldehyde using pulsed dye laser

Absorption spectra of formaldehyde molecule in the gas phase have been recorded using photoacoustic (PA) technique with pulsed dye laser at various power levels. The spectral profiles at higher power levels are found to be different from that obtained at lower laser powers. Two photon absorption (TPA) is found to be responsible for the photoacoustic signal at higher laser power while the absorption at lower laser power level is attributed to one photon absorption (OPA) process. Probable assignments for the different transitions are given in this paper.     

A tunable,frequency-doubled cw dye laser using an RDP crystal

We report a c.w. intracavity, frequency doubled, rhodamine B dye laser using an RDP crystal 5 cm long. Generated uv powers up to 15 mW are obtained in a single direction with a linewidth of 2 GHz over the range 314–318 nm. A conversion efficiency of about 1.25 × 10^-3 W^-1 is measured.