This Engineering Research Equipment Grant will support purchase of equipment capable of producing narrow linewidth (< 100 MHz) or short temporal width dye laser pulses. Specially, a pulsed dye amplifier (PDA) is sought which would enable a variety of spectroscopic experiments involving diatomic molecules that are attractive candidates for new VUV, UV or visible lasers. Also an existing CW dye laser will be upgraded to narrow linewidth, scanning operation. Both of these items of equipment will be coupled with existing pump lasers (excimer for the PDA, AR+ ion for the CW dye) to examine the structure via spectroscopy of: (1) rare gas dimers (for a potential anti-Stokes Raman laser in the VUV); (2) rare gas oxides; and (3) lead monoiodide. Furthermore, experiments designed to explore the pulsed amplication of quantum well semiconductor lasers will be conducted. This equipment will improve the ability to investigate the details of the structure and chemical behavior of potential new laser molecules and develop new sources of tunable radiation in the VUV to visible, as well as expand the scope of other on-going research.
