High-energy picosecond pulses: design of a dye-laser-amplifier system

A synchronously pumped dye laser is constructed that uses an actively mode-locked Q-switched Nd:YAG laser as the pump source. The system consists of a grating-tuned dye oscillator and two transversely pumped and one longitudinally pumped amplifier stages. Output energies of 1.5 mJ in a 20-psec pulse at 5700 A, corresponding to a peak power of 10(8) W, are obtained by using rhodamine 6G. The energy can be increased to 3 mJ at 25 psec FWHM. Characteristics of the amplification process employing short (50-psec) pump pulses are discussed.