Abstract

We have designed and tested a pulsed dye amplifier (PDA) in which amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) is suppressed using a new spatial filter to isolate its three amplification stages from one another. The system can stand off a gain of over 10⁶ without the use of a saturable absorber or dispersing element between stages. This means that within the gain bandwidth of a given dye, frequency tuning is accomplished simply by changing the input frequency. Other amplifier systems require adjustment of the saturable absorber concentration or physical adjustment of dispersive elements to effect tuning.

© 1983 Optical Society of America