Superradiant picosecond laser emission from transversely pumped dye solutions

Superradiant picosecond laser emission has been obtained from dye solutions transversely pumped with the second harmonic of a mode-locked ruby laser. This provides a convinient scheme for obtaining ultrashot dye laser pulses in the visible range of the spectrum.     

A long-pulse xenon ion laser as a pumping source for dye lasers

A simple xenon ion laser that is either sealed or has a gas flow mode is described. The laser delivered long pulses ( 15 μs) of almost 1 kW peak power. It has been used to pump a dye laser employing the same configuration as cw dye lasers. The system is inexpensive and can be mode-locked, enabling it to yield ultrashort pulses comparable in duration to those delivered by cw argon laser-pumped dye lasers but with much higher peak powers.     

Pulse properties of a synchronously mode-locked,cavity dumped,picosecond dye laser system

A synchronously mode-locked, cavity-dumped picosecond dye laser is described. The structure and intensity of the picosecond pulses measured under different conditions are reported. It was found that the structure of the pulses from the synchronously pumped dye laser depends critically on the length of the Ar⁺ laser pulses. At the shortest Ar⁺ laser pulses of about 70 ps the dye pulses are as short as 1.1 ps. With Ar⁺ laser pulses of 200 ps the dye laser pulses contains a broad satellite pulse which contains a large fraction of the total intensity. When a cavity dumper is added to the system one gets dye laser pulses 15–20 ps long with a substructure, which indicates incomplete mode-locking. Well mode-locked 1.5–2.0 ps pulses were obtained in the red part of the dye laser action spectrum, i.e. 620–650 nm for R6G, 595–608 nm for R 110 and 657–662 nm for RB, respectively. Addition of mode-locking dyes also improved the pulse quality at some wavelengths.     

Tunable picosecond transient stimulated Raman scattering in ethanol

Transient stimulated Raman scattering (TSRS) of picosecond dye laser pulses in ethanol has been investigated experimentally. In particular some temporal features of TSRS from the C-H stretching mode (2928 cm^-1) in ethanol have been studied with a Photochron II streak camera with subpicosecond time resolution. It is shown that the use of TSRS provides a simple method for producing picosecond pulses tunable over the spectral region ≈492–532 nm and 691–772 nm by tuning a passively mode-locked Rhodamine 6G dye laser from 575–630 nm.     

Linear picosecond electron-optical chronoscopy at a repetition rate of 140 MHz

A picosecond streak camera operating in synchronism with C.W. mode-locked lasers provides real-time integrated measurement of repetitive luminous phenomena with a temporal resolution of ～ 10 ps. The durations of pulses from an actively mode-locked argon ion laser (514.5 nm) have been measured to be ～ 90 ps and the system is particularly suitable for the measurement of dye fluorescence lifetimes.     

Variable length transform-limited pulses from a stabilized synchronously-pumped mode-locked laser

We have investigated the stabilization of a synchronously-pumped mode-locked dye laser by self feedback. The output consists of transform-limited pulses whose shape and duration depend on the tuning of the main laser cavity. Measurements of the limiting of the feedback with respect to the main cavity indicate that the optimum timing depends on the length of the pumping pulses rather than that of the output pulses.     

Picosecond pulses from mode-locked dye lasers

Picosecond pulses have been generated in laser pumped (15 psec) and flashlamp pumped (6 psec) mode-locked dye lasers. Two-photon fluorescence and streak camera measurements are described.     

Picosecond and subpicosecon pulse generation in synchronously pumped mode-locked cw dye lasers

Generation of tunable near-infrared picosecond and subpicosecond pulses in a synchronously pumped cw mode-locked Oxazine-1-perchlorate dye laser has been investigated for different values of the important system parameters. The experimental results confirm the predictions of a simple theoretical model which describes the steady-state pulse duration in terms of gain modulation strength, pump power, intracavity bandwidth, pump pulse length and cavity detuning. For a pump-pulse length of 100 ps and a bandwidth of more than 500 Å for the intracavity tuning element dye-laser pulses as short as 0.35 ps have been obtained. Under these conditions up to 100 mW of average output power were provided. In addition, mode-locking of an Oxazine 750 dye laser by synchronous pumping with the cw train of pulses obtained from the Oxazine-1-Perchlorate laser is reported.     

Self phase modulation in a femtosecond pulse amplifier with subsequent compression

The pulses from a colliding-pulse mode-locked dye laser (100 fs, 20 pJ) are amplified to 0.2 mJ and self phase modulated in an excimer laser pumped dye amplifier. Suitable chirp compensation leads to nearly bandwidth-limited pulses of about 50 fs duration.     

Recent developments in picosecond photochronoscopy

Recent developments in the techniques of generation and measurement of picosecond and sub-picosecond pulses from mode-locked lasers are reviewed. Particular attention is paid to frequency tunable, bandwidth-limited pulses from dye lasers, especially the cw dye laser. In measurement the main emphasis is put on the rapid advances of the last few years in ultra-fast streak-cameras, ans the recent developments in streak-camera synchronization to a cw mode-locked laser is described. Future prospects for shorter wavelenght pulses in the uv and vuv are briefly considered.     

同步泵浦PML飞秒激光研究

采用CW锁模YAG倍频激光器同步泵浦PML飞秒染料激光器,产生了平均脉宽约55fs、功率为15mW的光脉冲。文章在理论和实验上还研究了同步泵浦飞秒激光脉冲产生技术。     

Characterization of the noise in continuously operating mode-locked lasers

An experimental and theoretical investigation of the fluctuations of the pulses from continuous-wave mode-locked lasers is presented. It is shown that these fluctuations can be detected and quantitatively characterized from measurements of the power spectrum of the light intensity. Such power spectra can be measured with great accuracy by shining the laser output on a suitable photodetector and by processing the detector signal with the use of an electronic spectrum analyzer. Different types of noise such as fluctuations of the pulse energy, pulse repetition time, and pulse duration, can be readily recognized from their characteristic spectral signature. Experimental results of noise measurements are presented for a synchronously mode-locked dye laser pumped by an acousto-optically mode-locked argon ion laser, and also for a colliding pulse passively mode-locked dye laser.     

Frequency offset locking of a synchronously pumped mode-locked dye laser

We have developed a scheme of frequency offset locking for transferring the frequency stability of a commercial dye laser to a synchronously pumped mode-locked dye laser. By observing the beat frequency between the two dye lasers, mode stability of less than 2 MHz has been observed for the mode-locked dye laser mode. The use of the mode-locked system as a spectroscopic tool has been demonstrated by observing Doppler-free multiple pulse two photon spectra of the sodium 3S-4D transition.     

YAG激光同步泵浦染料激光器产生38fs光脉冲

研究表明,不用碰撞脉冲锁模技术,而由一台简单的线型腔染料激光器,就可成功地产生短达38飞秒的光脉冲。这种激光器用六镜折叠腔,其中有Rh6G和DOPCI两个喷流和一个棱镜对色散补偿器,用连续锁模Nd:YAG激光器的倍频输出同步泵浦。染料激光脉冲的平均功率为20mW,脉冲重复频率近100MHz。     

Simple picosecond dye laser system pumped by a frequency doubled,optically compressed Q-switched mode-locked Nd:YAG laser

Using the frequency doubled output of the 3 ps pulses from a temporally compressed cw Q-switched and mode-locked Nd:YAG laser, a simple synchronously pumped dye laser was constructed to give frequency tunable operation with short pulses in the 5–10 ps range and peak powers of ～ 15 kW. A circularly scanning streak camera operating in stroboscopic mode was also used to examine pulse formation in the dye laser.     

Picosecond pulse generation and detection in the wavelength range 1200–1600 nm

Optical pulses of 1.5–5 ps duration tunable in the wavelength range 1200–1600 nm are generated by difference-frequency mixing mode-locked dye laser pulses in a lithium iodate crystal. The IR pulses are detected with picosecond resolution after transmission through long lengths of optical fibre, allowing the study of linear and nonlinear pulse propagation.     

Polarization spectroscopy with ultrashort light pulses

We have demonstrated the feasibility of Doppler-free polarization spectroscopy with a train of ultrashort pulses from a synchronously pumped mode-locked dye laser. The sensitivity of the method is compared with saturation spectroscopy with a single-mode laser. Work supported by U.S. Office of Naval Research under contract N00014-78-0403, Lindemann Fellow 1977–78.     

High power subpicosecond pulse generation from a synchronously pumped dye laser combined with an external compressor

A new scheme of subpicosecond pulse generation based on a dye laser is described. Output pulses of 15 ps from a rhodamine-6G laser pumped synchronously by a frequency-double mode-locked Nd: YAG laser are compressed into 0.8 ps pulses of 2 MW by two passes of saturable absorber (DODCI) and saturable amplifier (rhodamine-6G). The technique is useful for generating widely tunable, high power repetitive subpicosecond pulses.     

Generation of tunable picosecond pulses in the medium infrared by down-conversion in AgGaS2

Picosecond pulses from a mode-locked Nd:YAG laser and a traveling-wave dye laser are mixed in an AgGaS₂ crystal to generate pulses at the difference frequency. The dye laser is tunable between 1200 nm and 1460 nm resulting in a tuning range of the parametric pulses from 3.9 μm to 9.4 μm. The spectral bandwidth is quite narrow. A value of Δ?=6.5 cm^-1 was measured which is constant over the whole tuning range. Several percent of the Nd:YAG laser photons are converted to infrared photons. Pump pulses of 21 ps give parametric pulses of 8 ps.     

Experimental study of a continuously pumped, actively mode-locked dye laser

Operation of a continuously pumped actively mode-locked dye laser is reported. Using a 250 MHz electrooptic modulator, a stable output of pulses as short as 10 ps has been generated. The pulse waveform has been investigated as a function of the detuning between the cavity transit time and the modulation period.