Effect of optical turbulence in the dye medium on the bandwidth of a narrowband, high-repetition-rate dye laser

An analysis of turbulence in the dye medium of a high-repetition-rate narrowband dye laser is presented, and it is shown that the output bandwidth is proportional to the turbulence length scale, which depends on the Reynolds number. The length scale and the bandwidth both first decrease and then increase as the Reynolds number is increased from ~200 to ~20,000. The observed bandwidth, as we report and as in the published literature, confirms the validity of the analysis. A Rhodamine 6G grazing- incidence grating, stable dye laser transversely pumped by a copper-vapor laser was used in the experiments.