Fabry-Perot wavemeter for shot-by-shot analysis of pulsed lasers

A Fabry-Perot wavemeter for analyzing a pulsed laser operating in a single longitudinal mode with an injection-seeding technique has been constructed with an array detector. This wavemeter permits the real-time measurement of both the wavelength and the spectral effectiveness of the laser pulse produced at 10 Hz. The performance of the wavemeter is checked with a frequency-stabilized He-Ne laser and a double Nd:YAG laser that operates in the single longitudinal mode. The precision of the wavemeter is found to be < 10 MHz. Also, we calculated the uncertainties in determining the wave number by processing a Fabry-Perot fringe pattern imaged on a linear-array detector. The calculation is done by changing the number of pixels of the array detector, the finesse of the Fabry-Perot étalon, the waist of the incident laser beam, and the magnitude of random noise.