Dye Laser

A dye laser is a laser which uses an organic dye as the lasing medium, usually as a liquid solution. Compared to gases and most solid state lasing media, a dye can usually be used for a much wider range of wavelengths. The wide bandwidth makes them particularly suitable for tunable lasers and pulsed lasers. Moreover, the dye can be replaced by another type in order to generate different wavelengths with the same laser, although this usually requires replacing other optical components in the laser as well.

Dye lasers were independently discovered by P. P. Sorokin and F. P. Schäfer (and colleagues) in 1966.

In addition to the usual liquid state, dye lasers are also available as solid state dye lasers (SSDL). SSDL use dye-doped organic matrices as gain medium.