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Spectral Behavior And Pulse Train Instabilities Of A Synchronously Pumped Mode-Locked Dye Laser, Duncan Leo Macfarlane, Lee W. Casperson, Anthony A. Tovar

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The pulse-train envelope of a synchronously pumped mode-locked dye laser has been experimentally studied as a function of cavity length detuning. When a bandwidth-limiting birefringent tuning filter is included and the cavity is adjusted to the length that yields optimally short (˜2-psec) pulse, there is a slow (≤800 kHz), erratic amplitude modulation that provides a 20% variation in pulse energies. As the cavity length is detuned on the order of one part in 10⁴, the modulation vanishes, but the individual pulse lengths increade dramtically. Further detuning results in a clean periodic envelope with a 20% modulation depth and a˜5-μsec period. …