DEVELOPMENT OF A DUAL-WAVELENGTH DYE-LASER SYSTEM FOR THE UV AND ITS APPLICATION TO SIMULTANEOUS MULTIELEMENT DETECTION

In this paper, the design and performance characteristics of a pulsed tun able dye laser system for the simultaneous generation of two UV wa velengths are presented. The system is composed of an oscillator and a n amplifier stage, pumped by the second harmonic of a commercial Nd:YA G laser. Dual-wavelength operation is achieved with one additional tun ing mirror introduced to the prism expanded grazing incidence oscillat or. The two obtained wavelengths are independently tunable, their sepa ration is only limited by the gain profile of the dye. Both wavelength s are frequency doubled by Second-Harmonic Generation (SHG) in two KDP or BBO crystals. Performance characteristics such as bandwidth, effic iency, tuning range and wavelength separation are reported. As applica tion two such systems are used for the simultaneous detection of the f our elements cadmium, nickel, manganese and lead by Laser-Excited Atom ic Fluorescence Spectrometry in a graphite furnace (ETA-LEAFS).