Improving Dye Laser Efficiency with Uv Absorbers and Wavelength Shifters. Final Report.

摘要

The nonuniform heating in flashlamp pumped dye lasers forms refractive index gradients in the dye solution. These gradients distort the wavefront of the laser beam resulting in limited output power, limited pulse repetition rate, and limited attainable linewidth. The theorectical bases for using uv absorbers and wavelength shifters to eliminate light of detrimental wavelengths and thereby improve dye laser efficiency are described, and the results of experiments for evaluating 12 uv absorbers and 12 wavelength filters for use as possible pump light filters are presented. These experiments showed that the appropriate uv absorber or wavelength shifter to be used with a given laser dye is based on the absorption spectrum of the dye. If a uv absorber is needed, then the compound should be chosen so that its long wavelength absorption peak is just to the short wavelength side of the absorption peaks of the laser dye. If a wavelength shifter is needed, then the compound should be chosen so that there is maximum overlap between the fluorescence spectrum of the shifter and the absorption spectrum of the dye. Tabulated data are presented which can be used to selected protectors and shifters for specific dyes. (ERA citation 06:020713)