Studies on thermo-optic characteristics of a high repetition rate dye laser

Abstract

In this paper, an investigation on the thermo-optic characteristics of dye solution of a high repetition rate narrow spectral width dye laser has been carried out. The dye laser characteristics such as spectral width, wavelength, average optical power, pulse width and beam divergence are studied for dye solution bulk temperature alteration in 23–35°C range. The dye gain medium temperature was altered through the additional heat supplied to the gain medium. The dye solution temperature at the dye cell was monitored through a PC based temperature data acquisition system. It was observed that there is no appreciable change in the spectral width; however, the dye laser wavelength is shifted by 0.0567nm, in the temperature range investigated. The dye laser average power was decreased by nearly 36% for an increase of 12°C dye solution temperature, above the cavity/room temperature. The dye laser pulse width slightly increases, whereas area under the pulse width decreased from 8850 to 7650 counts in the 23–35°C temperature range. The dye laser horizontal beam divergence increased from 6 to 8.5mrad, while the vertical beam divergence from 1.2 to 1.5mrad, for the increase of temperature by 12°C. Apart from these statistical transforms, fluctuations of the characteristics parameter increased with the rising dye solution bulk temperature.