Simultaneous determination of the spectral and temporal properties of tunable, single, picosecond pulses from a short cavity dye laser

We report simultaneous quantitative spectral and temporal measurements of the output pulses from a single-axial mode rhodamine 6G short cavity (1-8 mum) dye laser. The dye laser was pumped at 10 Hz with single second harmonic (532 nm) pulses from a mode-locked Nd⁺³:YAG laser. Spectral measurements made with a high resolution spectrograph and temporal measurements made with an ultrafast streak camera indicate the production of Fourier transform limited pulses for near threshold operation. Output pulses of 7-14 ps (FWHM) are observed from the short cavity dye laser when pumped with 15-30 ps duration 532 nm pulses. The output pulse delay and jitter are also investigated. A theoretical model for the temporal evolution of the pulses is presented and compared with the experimental results.