高功率脉冲染料激光放大器物理设计

从理论研究出发,用激光增益理论得到了在平衡状态下忽略染料分子激发态吸收时,高功率脉冲梁料激光放大器物理设计的简单方法,同时以铜蒸气激光器双侧抽运的平均输出功率52.5W的脉冲染料激光放大器为例,对其物理尺寸进行了模拟设计。     

Flashlamp pumped tunable dye laser of ultra-narrow bandwidth

A flash lamp pumped dye laser with a ring cavity is injected with the light beam coming from a stabilized singlemode c.w. dye laser. The light emitted by the pulsed laser is analysed either by a Fabry Perot etalon, or by producing a Doppler-free two-photon transition. The bandwidth of the pulsed laser is identical to the one of the c.w. laser; but the pulsed light is shifted to higher frequency by an amount of a few MHz.     

New efficient laser dye for pulsed and CW operation in the UV

A new laser dye for pulsed and cw operation has been synthesized which can be tuned from 362 nm up to 412 nm. For pulsed excitation with a XeCl excimer laser an energy conversion of 18.5% has been measured at the tuning maximum of the dye; this is the highest efficiency for any known dye in the UV. For cw operation a low laser threshold and a goof efficiency have been observed. The range of tuned cw dye lasers is extended by 30 nm to shorter wavelengths. The dye shows high photochemical stability even at high pump laser power.     

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.     

Optimum gain length for pulsed dye laser amplifiers

It is shown analytically that for a pulsed dye laser amplifier, transversely pumped by a short duration pulsed laser, there exists an optimum gain length of the amplifier at dye laser wavelengths at which ground state absorption does not vanish. Thus, if the available pump power is distributed over this gain length, the extraction efficiency and the saturated gain of the amplifier reaches a maximum. The dependence of the extraction efficiency and gain on the amplifier length is strongly affected by the nonlinear absorption of the dye laser arising from excited state absorption, subsequent to ground state absorption.     

Rate equations for dye lasers: Comments on the spiking phenomenon

The rate equations generally used for dye lasers necessitate a number of assumptions. The assumptions are tested in the case of pulsed dye oscillator. It is shown that the assumptions break down during the laser onset. The main result is this: the spikes computed for the excited state population and for laser photon flux cannot be given a physical meaning and cannot be used to explain the properties of pulsed dye lasers.     

Power output coupling in a dye laser pumped by a nitrogen laser

A simple model for the operation of a pulsed dye laser, transversely pumped by a nitrogen laser, is presented. We consider the combined effect of the transmission of the laser output coupler, its distance from the dye cell and the saturated gain characteristics of the dye laser medium, on the operation of the laser. Experimental results are interpreted in terms of this model.     

Design of a dye laser for nonlinear spectroscopy

Special requirements should be met by a pulsed dye laser in order to provide reproducible data in a nonlinear experiment. The cavity and pumping laser are chosen to minimize effects due to detailed dye characteristics. A suitable ruby pumping laser is described.     

Infrared dye laser excited by a diode laser

A waveguide dye laser with an inner diameter of 30 μm and a length of 1.0 nm has been excited with a pulsed GaAlAs diode laser. The infrared-absorbing dye 5,5′-dichloro-11-diphenylamino-3,3′-diethyl-10,12-ethylenethiatri- carbocyanine perchlorate was used in tetramethylene sulfoxide solution. By changing dye concentration, laser wavelengths from 950 to 1005 nm were obtained.     

A subpicosecond dye laser pumped by a xenon ion laser

A pulsed xenon ion laser has been used to pump a rhodamine 6G dye laser utilizing a ring resonator. The dye laser has been passively mode-locked; a pulsewidth of 0.5 ps and a 50 kW peak power have been obtained.Work partly supported by Italian C.N.R.     

Spectral narrowing of a flashlamp-pumped,waveguide dye laser by amplification of tunable narrow-band cw radiation

Spectral narrowing of the broad-band emission from a flashlamp-pumped dye laser, which consisted of a slab waveguide high-gain amplifier in conjunction with a high-loss resonator, is reported.The pulsed laser oscillator was driven by a cw dye laser oscillating in several longitudinal modes. An energy output up to 10 mJ per pulse has been obtained with a driving power of 10 mW, showing the possibility of substantial power amplification of the narrow-band emission from a cw dye laser.     

A comparative study of approaches for spectral control of Ti:sapphire pulsed lasers

The results of a comparative study (theoretical and experimental) of two original approaches for spectral control of two-wavelength pulsed Ti:sapphire (Ti:S) lasers and the most popular conventional methods are presented. Single line operation as a particular case is considered. We compare our own methods: (i) combined dual pulse pumping–passive self-injection locking (DPP–PSIL) and (ii) coupled cavity dye laser injection locking (CCLIL) with the conventional methods: (i) intracavity selection (IS), (ii) PSIL and (iii) traditional injection locking using an external dye laser. The most important criteria—laser efficiency, emission line width, tuning range, spectral purity and buildup time are compared under optimized conditions. The comparison is made using the same pump source with constant output energy in each case. The results serve as a basis for choosing correctly the most suitable spectral control technique for a particular Ti:S laser application. It is shown that the DPP–PSIL method guarantees a remarkable improvement of the Ti:S laser performance (nearly doubling the laser efficiency with the same line width and comparable laser tuning range as IS, combined with a protection of the selectors). The CCLIL approach assures a maximum laser efficiency in narrow line emission in addition to a minimal and reproducible buildup time. The IS method provides a maximal tuning range.     

Pulsed optoacoustic spectroscopy for calorimetry wihout a standard

A calorimetric method is described which does not require a reference absorber to deduce absolute yields for heat deposition following pulsed laser irradiation. Pulsed optoacoustic detection is used and signals are calibrated based on the excitation wavelength dependence of the heat yield. The apparatus is used to measure fluorescence yields of several well known dyes in methanol solution. It is also demonstrated on a monolayer of dye adsorbed to sapphire where no reference would be available. This technique was originally developed to measure pulsed temperature rises in stained mitochondria, and to choose an appropriate staining dye for selective thermal denaturation of proteins in cancerous cells by pulsed laser heating.     

A mode-locked dye laser pumped by a xenon ion laser

Passive mode-locking of a rhodamine 6G dye laser has been achieved, using a pulsed xenon ion laser as a pumping source. A pulse width of 5 ps and a peak power of 4 kW have been obtained. Thermal problems were encountered, which adversely affected the operation of the dye laser. Work is in progress to improve these results.     

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     

Spectral purity of pulsed dye lasers

High-spectral purity of pulsed dye lasers is required by many experiments. Unfortunately, the dye laser output is usually accompanied by a spectrally broadband background of spontaneous emission (ASE). We have carried out detailed studies of the ASE background using a dye laser operating with an oscillator, pre- and main amplifier.Dedicated to Prof. Dr. Herbert Welling on the occasion of his 60th birthday     

A frequency locked, single mode pulsed dye laser. Application to single frequency tunable UV generation

This paper presents a new dye laser arrangement in which superposition of both cw and pulsed excitation permits to get a single mode pulsed tunable laser light beam. After amplification, this enables to generate single frequency tunable UV light with good conversion efficiency. An example is given of a high resolution study of Rb Rydberg states.     

Transient behaviour of pulsed dye lasers

Some aspects of the transient behaviour of pulsed dye lasers are investigated both theoretically and experimentally. Relaxation oscillations induced in the output from a dye cell by an external reflector have been observed and explained, using a rate equation approximation to the physical situation in the dye cell. These oscillations are shown to play an important part in the generation of short laser pulses from long cavity dye lasers. Finally, it is proposed that 10 ps pulses can be obtained from conventional dye lasers pumped by 100 ps pulses from a high-pressure nitrogen laser.     

Photoacoustic analysis of stimulated emission in pulsed dye lasers

Stimulated emission in pulsed dye lasers was characterized in several experimental conditions by analyzing the changes in the acoustic signals generated in a dye solution, with the dye laser cavity either active or inhibited (i.e., by blocking the optical path or misaligning of the optical components). Pump energy threshold, optimum dye concentration, tuning range and maximum-emission wavelength of a rhodamine 6G dye laser were measured by this method. An approximate model for the photoacoustic signal generation consistent with the experiments is presented.Member of CONICET     

The effect of dye photodegradation on the performance of dye lasers

Detailed experimental study of laser dye stability and the subsequent effects of photodegradation products on the operation of a Nd:YAG laser pumped Rhodamine-6G pulsed dye oscillator has been carried out. Deterioration of laser output on account of dye photodegradation resulting in the loss of active dye molecules and the generation and accumulation of reaction products that introduce a loss at the laser and pump wavelengths has been theoretically simulated in terms of a time dependent rate equation model. Our experimental observations have been found to be in good agreement with our theoretical estimates. We have also investigated the deterioration in the performance of a copper vapour laser pumped tunable dye laser with a high average power and a high repetition rate operating over an extended period of time. Our theoretical model, when suitably modified, provided useful estimates for the extent of deterioration in laser performance of such a dye laser with a high average power and a high repetition rate on account of photodegradation of the active dye molecules. PACS 42.55.Mv; 42.60.By; 42.70.Hj