PICOSECOND PULSES FROM UV TO IR USING SPECTRO-TEMPORAL SELECTION DYE LASER

Abstract
High power single pulses are produced, starting from one standard 8 ns Nd:YAG laser, by the two-stage spectro-temporal selection method in a dye laser system (1). A first dye oscillator gives 150 ps pulses which are used after amplification to pump a multimode microcavity (100 to 200 µm). By filtering the emission of a single mode in the "blue" wing at 605 nm, an almost bandwidth-limited, 1.5 to 4 ps ps pulse is selected and amplified up to 0.3 mJ. The complex time shape of the emission from the multimode cavity without selection is studied with a streak camera and by autocorrelation. The latter shows a subpicosecond modulation, due to mode beat, within a single (amplified) spike.