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I have a pulsed dye laser on a prototype ablation system, which is pumped by a Nitrogen laser (Photonic Instruments MicroPoint).  This setup can run at up to 20Hz, but I find that when I go faster than 10Hz, the power level drops off quite a bit. This may be a property of the pump laser, or the dye itself becoming locally depleted.  Since the pump laser is gas, I'd expect its recovery to be faster than dye in solution.

Therefore, I would expect a cw dye laser to need some very good, consistent mixing in order to provide a strong enough, constant enough beam for imaging. Otherwise, it will be too noisy.

Take a look in: http://members.misty.com/don/laserfaq.htm for info on lasers.  this site has info on most kinds of lasers.  Might be helpful.

David
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Center for Plant Cell Biology
UC-Riverside CA