Tunable laser

CW dye laser based on Rhodamine 6G. The dye laser is considered to be the first broadly tunable laser.

A tunable laser is a laser whose wavelength of operation can be altered in a controlled manner. While all laser gain media allow small shifts in output wavelength, only a few types of lasers allow continuous tuning over a significant wavelength range.

There are many types and categories of tunable lasers. They exist in the gas, liquid, and solid state. Among the types of tunable lasers are excimer lasers, gas lasers (such as CO2 and He-Ne lasers), dye lasers (liquid and solid state), transition metal solid-state lasers, semiconductor crystal and diode lasers, and free electron lasers.[1] Tunable lasers find applications in spectroscopy,[2] photochemistry, atomic vapor laser isotope separation,[3][4] and optical communications.

  1. ^ F. J. Duarte (ed.), Tunable Lasers Handbook (Academic, 1995).
  2. ^ W. Demtröder, Laser Spectroscopy: Basic Principles, 4th Ed. (Springer, Berlin, 2008).
  3. ^ J. R. Murray, in Laser Spectroscopy and its Applications, L. J. Radziemski, R. W. Solarz, and J. A. Paisner (Eds.) (Marcel Dekker, New York, 1987) Chapter 2.
  4. ^ M. A. Akerman, Dye-laser isotope separation, in Dye Laser Principles, F. J. Duarte and L. W. Hillman, Eds. (Academic, New York, 1990) Chapter 9.