Diode pumped tunable dye laser

A wavelength-tunable dye laser pumped by blue laser diodes (\(\lambda =445\) nm) in a 200 ns pulsed mode has been developed. We used a 3-mirror cavity with transverse excitation and total internal reflection of laser beam in the active element. Tuning curves for 8 dyes in benzyl alcohol were measured in the range of 506–700 nm. Four dyes have their tuning range more than 60 nm, which is comparable to the tuning ranges of other dye lasers pumped by more expensive sources. The output energy obtained at the generation maximum of both DCM and coumarin 540A dyes was approximately 130 nJ while the pump energy was 2400 nJ.