Tunable (720–970 nm) laser with a single-stage organic-dye amplifier

A tunable (λ=720–970 nm) laser system utilizing organic dye solutions was built and investigated. The system comprised an oscillator with a dispersive resonator (diffraction grating) a prism telescope, and a single-pass power amplifier using the same dye solutions. The system was excited with a Q-switched ruby laser. When the excitation power was divided in the ratio 1:4 between the oscillator and amplifier, the gain of the system as a whole was 25. The width of the output spectrum was 1–4 Å. The radiation was emitted in the form of 0.25 J pulses of 20 nsec duration. The radiation power density reaching the grating was 0.6 MW/cm². The construction of the system should make it possible to increase the angular brightness of the radiation and to reduce the modulation of the spectral-energy tuning characteristic.