This liquid laser was developed in the Space Optics Laboratory at NASA'S Electronics Research Center in Cambridge. The part of it shown here is the ultrafast flash lamp. In the liquid laser a coaxial flash lamp surrounds the organic dyes which fill the cylindrical axis of the assembly. The energy storage capacitor is also mounted coaxially with the discharge system, and its electrodes are connected to the reflecting and conducting coatings applied on the outside surface of the outer quartz tube. This arrangement makes for the lowest possible conductance which results in very fast discharge. (Flash risetime is .05 micro-seconds, flash duration is .02 micro-seconds.) At the ends of the solution cell are placed reflectors which are broad band in the visible. In this manner the lasing output can be varied throughout the visible, from blue to red, continuously, merely by a simple and inexpensive changing of the dye solution itself. The scientist is Sejfi Protopapa.