Tunable, high-power, subpicosecond blue-green dye laser system with a two-stage dye amplifier

A two-stage dye amplifier design has been developed to amplify tunable, blue-green, subpicosecond dye laser pulses which are generated from a hybrid synchronously mode-locked dye oscillator directly (800 fs) or shorter to 200 fs by a fiber compressor stage. This system has achieved single pulse energies of 2 mJ, with an amplified spontaneous emission content of less than 0.1%. Using 40 mJ of the third-harmonic output of an Nd:YAG regenerative amplifier to pump the dye amplifier system, these pulse energies represent an energy extraction efficiency of approximately 5%. The tunability, stability, and spatial and temporal quality of the output pulses from the system have also been characterized.<
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