Short pulse generation from a flashlamp-pumped rhodamine 6G ring dye laser using the colliding pulse mode-locking technique.

The colliding pulse mode-locking (CPM) technique has been applied to a flashlamp-pumped rhodamine 6G dye laser to reliably generate pulses of <1.5 ps. Pulse evolution in the ring cavity has been studied by examining the pulse characteristics at various parts of the pulse train using a Photochron II streak camera. The measured pulse durations in the ring cavity were found to be detector-limited and were shorter than those generated in a linear cavity. The shortest pulses were observed to evolve toward the end of the ~600-ns long mode-locked train.