Investigation of the stimulated-emission characteristics of a longitudinally pumped laser utilizing a grazing-incidence holographic grating

A study was made of the stimulated-emission characteristics of a longitudinally pumped laser utilizing a grazing-incidence holographic grating. Gratings with 1450 and 2500 line/mm were specially optimized for operation in the grazing-incidence regime. Measurements were made of the diffraction efficiency of these gratings for large incidence angles at a wavelength of 571.5 nm. An output power of 180 kW was achieved for rhodamine 6G with a laser line width of 0.1 cm/sup -1/. Single-mode radiation with a half-width of 1.5 x 10/sup em-dash//sup 2/ cm/sup -1/ was generated near the lasing threshold without using additional selective elements.