• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.162-168
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• 1999

A new design of four-pass dye laser amplifier affording a narrow-bandwidth pulsed output is demonstrated to suppress the amplified spontaneous emission(ASE) carried by the amplifier output and reduce the possibility of parasitic oscillation in the amplifier. By the direct pulsed amplification of a cw 100 mW dye laser under a Q-switched doubled Nd:YAG laser pumping with energy of 5.6 mJ/pulse, high-peak-power pulsed output with 1.5-mJ energy in 130-MHz bandwidth is obtained corresponding to a power gain greater than $2{\times}10^6$ and an energy efficiency of 27%. The ASE ratio in the four-pass amplifier output is dramatically reduced by using a diffraction grating in the amplifier. Compared with the results obtained from the normal operation of the amplifier with no frequency-selective device, the ASE ratio is reduced by a factor in excess of 10 to remain under 1.5% of the amplifier output whereas the total output energy is slightly increased by ~4%.