Method and device for producing individual short laser pulses

A method is described for producing individual short laser pulses, in which a laser medium which can be stimulated is excited by means of a pump pulse in order to produce a population inversion lying above a laser threshold value, and, after the emission of the short radiation pulse, the population inversion is held below the threshold value, which is characterised in that energy is initially extracted from the laser medium, which can be stimulated jointly by two resonators, by means of a first relaxation process at a predetermined threshold value with a relatively short time constant and a relatively low quality, and from the first resonator in the form of the desired individual short laser radiation pulse, and the inversion in the laser medium is subsequently held below the predetermined threshold value of the first resonance process, by means of a second relaxation process, of relatively long time constants and a relatively high quality in the second resonator which is coupled to the first. Furthermore, devices for carrying out this method are specified, which essentially contain two optical resonators of different length and different resonator life, whose optical axes both pass through one and the same active laser medium, which preferably consists of a dye solution.