A computer controlled, narrow linewidth, broadly tunable, continuous wave laser

A continuous wave, tunable, single frequency dye ring laser has been developed. This laser is capable of giving output powers, in a single longitudinal mode, in excess of 7 mV, using different dyes and Second Harmonic Generation or Sum Frequency Mixing schemes, a wavelength coverage from 26 nm to 8 nm can be achieved. Using a PDP 11/3 minicomputer and a CAMAC dataway, control of a linear as well as a ring laser, oscillating in a single longitudinal mode, has been accomplished. The various optical elements in the dye laser cavity and the nonlinear mixing device are synchronously tracked. The laser can be operated both as a low resolution (4 GHz bandwidth) and a high resolution (.1 GHz bandwidth) visible and ultraviolet radiation source. Using Boyd and Kleinman theory for Second Harmonic Generation of focussed Gaussian beams,theoretical estimates for the wavelength and angle bandwidths are made. Some of the results have been experimentally verified