A picosecond short cavity dye laser utilizes a piezoelectric translator to vary the length of the optical cavity in the laser to allow continuous tuning of the output wavelength. The laser includes a pair of closely spaced generally flat mirrors forming an optical cavity. A laser dye solution is inserted into the cavity. The short cavity laser is pumped by pulses from another laser to produce picosecond output pulses. The piezoelectric translator, which is attached to one of the mirrors, moves the mirror to tune the laser as an applied DC voltage is varied. The piezoelectric tuning of the dye laser allows the laser to operate in a tunable single axial mode.