DIDACTICAL PULSED DYE-LASERS

This work presents the design, construction and parametrization of pulsed dye lasers, which are economic and easily instrumented by undergraduate students without previous experience. It analyzes the Littrow and grazing incidence configurations and presents simple alternatives to reduce the band width. Also studied are the threshold energy and the pump beam focus in didactic experiments. These lasers are pumped by simple and economic N-2 lasers that emit at ultraviolet wavelength (337 nm), which allows to pump dyes with emission spectrums from as low as 357 to 708 nm; and a tuning range between 30 and 60 nm.