KRF LASER-PUMPED DYE-LASER STUDIES

Dye-laser efficiency measurements were performed on four Coumarin dyes : C-485, C-498, C-500, and C-503, all operating near 500 nm. They were pumped with a 16-ns pulse-length KrF laser. The most efficient of the Coumarin dyes tested was C-498. The intrinsic efficiency of this dye was found to increase with pump rate. At a pump rate of 2 MW/cm2, an i ntrinsic efficiency of > 20% was measured. Longer KrF laser pulses (> 1.2 mus) were also used to pump C-498 and resulted in comparable laser efficiencies at similar pump rates. The temporal relationship between the input KrF laser pump pulse and the output dye-laser pulse was stu died and was found to differ significantly for long and short pulses. Significant improvement in long-pulse laser performance was observed w hen the laser-cavity configuration incorporated a skip mode.