Tunable Laser Applications, 3rd Edition

Chapter 3

Solid-State Organic Dye Lasers

Angel Costela, I. García-Moreno, and R. Sastre

3.1 Introduction

From the mid-1960s, dye lasers have been attractive sources of coherent tunable visible radiation because of their unique operational flexibility [1,2]. Dye lasers can emit both pulsed and continuous-wave forms, can be pumped with a wide variety of excitation sources, and exhibit an inherent ability to yield high pulse energies and high average powers. Hundreds of dyes have been demonstrated to lase measurably, covering the range from the ultraviolet to the near infrared. The introduction of wavelength-selective elements in the laser cavity allows narrow-linewidth operation and tunability, and the large gain bandwidth of these molecules makes ...