Narrow bandwidth dye laser suitable for pumping by a short pulse duration N(2) laser

The design criteria and performance characteristics are reported of a tunable, narrow bandwidth dye laser that is suitable for pumping by a short pulse duration high power N(2) laser. The dye laser system is characterized by a relatively short over-all length of 15 cm. Bandwidths of from 0.015 nm to 0.05 nm are obtained along with conversion efficiencies in the neighborhood of 10% using a 4-5 nsec pulse duration N(2) pump. Bandwidths of 0.001 nm are observed with an intracavity etalon in the system. More important, however, it is shown that the conversion efficiency of an intracavity etalon dye laser system can be greatly improved if the temporal distribution of the N(2) pump pulse is adjusted so a single dye cell in a dye laser system is used first as an oscillator and then as an amplifier. Finally, using the above technique of processing the N(2) pump pulse, a 5-nsec N(2) laser is used to pump an intracavity etalon dye laser, which is followed by a large gap external etalon and then by an amplifier; the resulting bandwidth is 0.0005 nm at 480 nm with a conversion efficiency of 4.5%.