Effects of excited-state absorption and stimulated emission in UV dyes on the shortening of laser pulses interacting with saturable absorbers

Saturation properties of the dyes in the presence of excited-state absorption and amplified spontaneous emission in the dye are studied theoretically. In the analysis the above two effects are included separately and it is shown that they are deleterious to the pulse-shortening capabilities of the dyes. It is also shown that in the conventional single-pass shortening of laser pulses with saturable dyes large pulse shortening ratios (20) may be expected if the dye saturation is combined with a properly delayed dye generation.