Experimental and theorectical study of quenched dye lasers

Summary form only given. Our calculations and experiments show that the optimum performance of a quenched dye laser (QCDL) requires a high pump intensity and a small rise time of the pump pulse. Introducing a saturable absorber into the system strongly improves the performance, resulting in smaller pulses, higher energies, and a more effective tail suppression, thus relaxing the requirements for intensity and the rise time of the pump pulse.