System for pumping dyes with a U-shaped lamp and a rectangular dye cell

A pumping system, using low-inductance pulse-discharge lamps and a rectangular cell for rhodamine 6G, was developed. The lamp efficiency in various spectral ranges was investiagated in detail. The efficiency of the enclosure was deduced from the expansion of the dye. When the enclosure efficiency was about 0.2 and the lamp efficiency in the pumping region of rhodamine was close to 16%, the laser output energy was 50 J and the laser efficiency was 0.3% for pump pulses of about 20 μsec duration.