Abstract
Synchronous mode locking of a dye laser longitudinally pumped by the second‐harmonic pulse train from a passively mode‐locked, repetitively pulsed Nd:YAG laser has been studied. The dye laser, incorporating Fabry‐Perot tuning elements, has produced intense TEM00 pulses as short as 12 psec in duration with a transform‐limited bandwidth of 2 cm1. The mode‐locked dye pulses are time synchronizable with the intense Nd:YAG pulses and have been tuned from 549–727 nm using several laser dyes. Both lasing efficiency and pulse duration exhibit pronounced cavity length dependences that result from processes of gain depletion and population recycling during a pumping pulse. Pulses shorter than the pump are generated under cavity length conditions for which only gain depletion effects occur.