The generation of a single and stable picosecond pulse by distributed feedback dye laser is investigated in this work. The numerical result for the rate equation system that includes the thermal effects in the lasing medium is provided. By applying this model to Rhodamine 6G, it is found that considerable improvement in the stability of the laser can be achieved by pumping the system with narrower laser pulses. The simulation shows that if the dye solution is pumped by sub-200 ps pulse, the laser can be operated in single-pulse output mode with acceptable stability in pulsewidth over a long range of pumping intensity. This result is confirmed by a more complicated model composed of non-averaged Maxwell and rate equations. Even though the thermal effects do not play a significant role in equivalent cavity lifetime, they result in considerable wavelength shift toward the shorter wavelengths.

No abstract