Influence of superfluorescence on the operation of lasers with dye amplifiers

An investigation was made of a longitudinally pumped laser-single-pass dye amplifier system with a view to optimizing the total conversion efficiency. It was shown that competition between two processes–amplification of the external signal and of the spontaneous noise–determines the total efficiency of conversion of the pump into useful signal. The superfluorescence restricts the maximum gain and conversion efficiency of small external signals, as does the saturation by the signal being amplified in the case of large external signals. A quantitative analysis was made of the choice of optimal optical density of the amplifier and of the competition between two coupled waves in a nonlinearly amplifying medium.