DYE HIGH-POWER OPTICAL SWITCH

Experimental and numerical results are presented showing that a dye laser amplifier can be used as a very fast high power optical switch. The operation of the device is based on the fact that the absorption and transmission of the pump beam in the laser amplifier strongly depends on the intensity of the amplified signal beam [1]. In particular it is shown that with relatively small signal beams it is possible to control large transmitted pump beams. A comparison between the numerical and the experimental observations show them to be in good qualitative agreement.