Chirp control of a single-mode, good beam quality, zigzag dye laser

Author

Mandl, A. ; Zavriyev, A. ; Klimek, D.E.

Author_Institution

Syst. Div., Textron Defense Syst., Wilmington, MA, USA

Volume

33

Issue

3

fYear

1997

fDate

3/1/1997 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

303

Lastpage

306

Abstract

We report a substantial reduction of frequency chirp of a single-mode laser-pumped zigzag dye laser. A linear optical cavity using counterpropagating orthogonally polarized waves was injection-seeded at 568 mn and operated with a laser output of about 1 J. The chirp was controlled by an intracavity Pockels cell that was configured to add optical density at a rate which counterbalanced the decrease in optical density due to dye-solvent heating during the ~1-μs laser pulse. Heterodyne measurements were used to determine that the bandwidth was near the transform limit and chirp rate of ~1 MHz/μs. The beam quality of the laser was measured at 10 Hz as 1.7 XDL

Keywords

Pockels effect; chirp modulation; dye lasers; electro-optical modulation; laser beams; laser cavity resonators; laser modes; optical pumping; optical variables control; physical instrumentation control; 1 J; 1 mus; 10 Hz; 568 nm; bandwidth; chirp control; chirp rate; counterpropagating orthogonally polarized waves; dye-solvent heating; frequency chirp; good beam quality; heterodyne measurements; injection-seeding; intracavity Pockels cell; laser pulse; laser-pumped zigzag dye laser; linear optical cavity; optical density; single-mode; transform limit; zigzag dye laser; Bandwidth; Chirp; Frequency; Heating; Laser beams; Optical control; Optical mixing; Optical polarization; Optical pulses; Temperature control;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/3.555996

Filename

555996