Study of a new dye cell for a high repetition rate dye laser

Abstract

In this paper, performance of a transversely pumped high repetition rate narrow spectral width tunable dye laser, which makes use of a very simple dye cell, has been investigated. The dye cell is made of a single piece glass tube, which is free from edges and additional holder for windows as generally used in dye cells. The scheme essentially involves the pinching of glass tube in such a way that smooth profile for liquid flow exists near the optical pumping region. This ensures the minimization of dye solution flow induced instabilities near the dye laser axis. The performance of this dye cell was evaluated by using it in a dye laser system having narrow linewidth dispersive resonator, pumped by a high repetition rate copper vapor laser, by means of the Fabry-Perot interferometer setup. The dye laser spectral stability was within ±5% over the observation period of 75 min. The efficiency of the dye laser with uncoated optics was reasonably good. The output power of dye laser was also fairly steady over the observation period of more than an hour. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd.