Physics and technology of tunable pulsed single longitudinal mode dye laser

Design and technology demonstration of compact, narrow bandwidth, high repetition rate, tunable SLM dye lasers in two different configurations, namely Littrow and grazing incidence grating (GIG), were carried out in our lab at BARC, India. The single longitudinal mode (SLM) dye laser generates single-mode laser beams of ∼400 MHz (GIG configuration) and ∼600 MHz (Littrow configuration) bandwidth. Detailed performance studies of the Littrow and GIG dye laser resonators showed that GIG dye laser results in narrower linewidth and broad mode hop free wavelength scanning over 70 GHz. In this paper we present experimental studies carried out on the high repetition rate SLM dye laser system.     

A tunable,single mode,injection-locked flashlamp pumped dye laser

A tunable, very narrow bandwidth, flashpumped dye laser is described. Publse energies up to 50 mJ at a bandwidth of less than 30 MHz, and with a divergence of 0.4 mrad, are obtained. Spectral narrowing and tuning is achieved by injection locking of the pulsed laser to the radiation, of a tunable cw dye laser. The cavity is designed for single longitudinal and transverse mode operation, with a mode diameter large enough to fill the active medium. This work was supported in part by the Israel commission for Basic Research, and in part by a grant from the United States Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF), Jerusalem, Israel.     

A single mode flashlamp-pumped dye laser

A flashlamp-pumped dye laser capable of single transverse and longitudinal mode operation is described. The maximum untuned power output is 2 MW cm^-2, TEM₀₀ mode. By employing three intracavity Fabry—Pérot etalons, a minimum spectral width of 4 MHz, stable to within 12 MHz, has been obtained.     

A high efficiency dye laser tunable from the UV to the IR

A dye laser has been developed as a source of tunable radiation in the wavelength range 3500–3700 Å. A Variety of dyes and dye mixtures have been used to cover this range. Output powers up to 30 kW are obtained with line-widths less than 1.8 Å. A Fabry-Pérot etalon reduces the output linewidth to 0.1 Å and the peak output power by a factor of three. Second harmonic powers in excess of 2 kW have been generated from the output of this laser.     

Measurement of flow fluctuations in single longitudinal mode pulsed dye laser

A simple technique had been demonstrated for measuring flow-induced fluctuations in the single longitudinal mode (SLM) pulsed dye laser. Two prominent frequency components of 10.74 Hz and 48.83 Hz were present in the output of the Nd:YAG-pumped SLM dye laser. The flow-induced frequency component of 48.83 Hz was present due to the revolution per minute of the motor attached to the magnetically coupled gear pump. The time average bandwidth of 180 MHz has been obtained for this SLM dye laser. The effect of pump pulse energy on the bandwidth of the SLM dye laser was studied. The bandwidth of the SLM dye laser was increased to 285 MHz from 180 MHz, when the pump pulse energy was increased to 0.75 mJ from 0.15 mJ for a constant dye flow velocity of 0.5 m/s.     

Widely tunable extreme UV frequency comb generation

Extreme UV (XUV) frequency comb generation in the wavelength range of 51 to 85 nm is reported based on high-order harmonic generation of two consecutive IR frequency comb pulses that were amplified in an optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier. The versatility of the system is demonstrated by recording direct XUV frequency comb excitation signals in He, Ne, and Ar with visibilities of up to 61%.     

腔内带圆形空心波导的可调谐窄带脉冲染料激光器

本文报道了一种腔内带圆形空心波导和掠入射光栅的可调谐窄带脉冲染料激光器;实验结果表明:该激光系统能获得基横模、窄频带和高效率的激光输出。文中对系统设计机理也进行了分析。     

The generation of tunable UV radiation from 238–249 nm,by intracavity frequency doubling of a coumarin 102 dye laser

Lithium formate monohydrate has been used for intracavity frequency doubling of a coumarin 102 dye laser. The tuning range is 238–249 nm, with maximum generated UV powers 70 μW at 244 nm.     

Temporal dynamics of high repetition rate pulsed single longitudinal mode dye laser

Theoretical and experimental studies of temporal dynamics of grazing incidence grating (GIG) cavity, single-mode dye laser pumped by high repetition rate copper vapour laser (CVL) are presented. Spectral chirp of the dye laser as they evolve in the cavity due to transient phase dynamics of the amplifier gain medium is studied. Effect of grating efficiency, focal spot size, pump power and other cavity parameters on the temporal behaviour of narrow band dye laser such as build-up time, pulse shape and pulse width is studied using the four level dye laser rate equation and photon evolution equation. These results are compared with experimental observations of GIG single-mode dye laser cavity. The effect of pulse stretching of CVL pump pulse on the temporal dynamics of the dye laser is studied.     

Production of high power tunable UV laser emission by second-harmonic generation fro, a rhodamine 6G dye laser

The generation of tunable UV radiation in the 280–310 nm range by doubling the output frequency of a flashlamp-excited Rhodamine 6 G dye laser is described. By using KDP and ADP crystals, conversion efficiencies of respectively 9.4% and 8.4% are obtained with UV output energies up to 50 mJ.     

The efficient generation of tunable near UV radiation using a N2 pumped dye laser

Power tuning curves are presented for a variety of dyes which lase, under nitrogen laser excitation, within the wavelength range 3600–4500 Å. These curves may be used to determine the best choice of dye to generate radiation at any given wavelength within this interval.     

Optimization of a distributed feedback dye laser system to generate single tunable picosecond pulses from UV to IR

We report a new configuration of a picosecond distributed feedback dye laser system, which can be pumped by various wavelengths. The optical characteristics of the system are presented. By using a triangle mirror functioned beam splitter and a right-angle prism attached to the front face of the cell in the pumping geometry, continuously and widely tunable laser wavelengths have been obtained for a range of more than 100 nm. A quenching mirror adhered to a face on the side of the cell, functioning as a high-Q cavity shared common gain medium, has been employed to observe single short laser pulses with transform-limited bandwidth.     

Spectral optimisation of a synchronously mode locked femtosecond dye laser

Through optimisation of the spectrum and dispersion parameters of a synchronously mode locked Rhodamine B dye laser, pulses as short as 270 fs have been directly generated without using any saturable absorber or pulse compressor. In addition a system of tunable output coupling with well characterised dispersion has been demonstrated.     

Single mode operation of a tunable cw dye laser

Using the differential absorption method the NO₂ concentration within the plume of a smoke stack and over the area of a chemical factory was measured.     

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.     

The passively mode locked and dispersion compensated Rhodamine 110 dye laser

The passive mode locking of a CW Rhodamine 110 dye laser in various dispersion compensated cavities is reported. Using the dye 1, 1, 3, 3, 3', 3'-hexamethylindocarbocyanine iodide (HICI) as the saturable absorber, pulses as short as 80 fs have been obtained from a CPM ring laser operating at a wavelength of 581 nm.     

An improved automatically tunable second harmonic generation of dye laser

A simple compact and high efficiency automatic frequency doubling system is described.     

A tunable,frequency-doubled,continuous-wave dye laser using ADA

A tunable, continuous-wave, frequency-doubled, rhodamine 6G dye laser has been developed using an ADA crystal placed in an astigmatic and coma compensated cavity. Generated UV powers of the order of 30mW cw in a single direction in gaussian form over the range 292–302 nm have been obtained by temperature phase matching, and with a 4.5 W pump. Power output is affected by thermal phase mismatching, and is ultimately limited by thermal lensing. Two scanning systems have been developed; a broadband arrangement of linewidth 0.02 nm continuously tunable over a range of 2 nm, and a narrowband system of linewidth 0.002 nm continuously tunable over a range of 1 nm. The laser has been used to detect the Rydberg states of Rb up to a principal quantum of n = 74.     

Very narrow-bandwidth tunable infrared difference frequency generation with injection-locked dye lasers

Two flashlamp pumped dye lasers of very high spectral quality are mixed in a LiIO₃ crystal to generate a tunable infrared beam through the difference frequency mixing. Thanks to the injection-locking process of the pulsed dye lasers leading to a linewidth of 6 MHz with peak powers of about 10 kW, we obtain an IR beam tunable from 3.5 to 5.9 m with a peak power of 40 W and a linewidth of 9 MHz. As an application we present a spectrum of N₂O obtained by differential absorption near 1880 cm^–1. The lines of thisQ-branch are Doppler limited at the working pressure (10² Pa).     

Spatially-hole-burned distributed feedback dye laser produced tunable single picosecond pulses

A new type of distributed feedback dye laser is described in which the Bragg grating is formed by spatial hole-burning. With a simple excimer laser pumped arrangement, single high stability 6 ps pulses were generated. The pulses were nearly transformlimited and were 33 times shorter than the rise time of the pulse which created the Bragg grating.on leave from JATE University, Department of Experimental Physics, Dóm tér 9, H-6720 Szeged, Hungary