Operating Characteristics of a Passively Mode-Locked CW Ring Dye Laser

Abstract

The design and operation of a passively mode-locked CW ring dye laser where a relatively thick saturable absorber-jet (-200 μm) is employed is described. In order to produce the shortest pulse duration, the optimal operating condition concerning with the DODCI concentration, the pumping power, and the oscillating wavelength's investigated in details. As a result, it is shown that the ring dye laser with a birefringent filter inside the cavity produces tunable pulses of the duration of -0.51 ps in the wavelength region from 600 to 614 nm, while the laser without the filter produces the pulse duration of 0.21 ps with the peak power of 690 W at a low pumping power (below 1W). In addition, the autocorrelation measurement between the noncollinear and collinear methods is compared by using an autocorrelator capable of both the slow- and rapid-scanning modes. Finally it is demonstrated that the tunable subpicosecond laser is so stable and efficient as to enable to examine easily the 1.23 ps time-resolution of a single-shot streak camera.