The design and construction of a flashlamp-pumped frequency-doubled dye laser applicable to long path monitoring of air pollutants

The subject of this thesis is the development of a laser light source which could be used in an air pollution monitor to measure the average concentration of sulfur dioxide gas over long paths (\u3e1 km). Many of the problems encountered in designing a long-path pollutant monitor such as instrument cost and reliability, the selection of an optimum spectral region for making the measurement, and light losses due to scattering and turbulence, are considered. The result of these considerations together with a survey of available laser light sources suggested that a frequency- doubled dye laser possessed several advantages over other laser light sources