Abstract

Dye lasers generate the shortest pulses of any laser source. We have investigated amplification of ultrashort pulses in mixed dyes. The dye mixture can be varied to match the pulse spectrum. In particular, using a mixture of rhodamine 640 and DCM, we amplify to the millijoule level sub-100-fs pulses produced in a CPM dye laser. It is interesting to note that the ASE spectrum remains featureless over a bandwidth corresponding to a 20-fs pulse.

© 1990 Optical Society of America