This is a brief guide to some aspects of the literature of solid-state organic lasers. These organic lasers use dye-doped organic polymer gain media and they are also known as dye-doped polymer lasers. It should be noted that these lasers have been demonstrated to lase under optical excitation that can be accomplished either by the use of a pump laser or by the use of non-laser (incoherent) means. In all cases this pumping, or excitation, represents an indirect electrical mode of excitation. Non-laser, electrically indirect, pumping for this class of lasers was first demonstrated in 1967.
First Generation Solid-State Dye-Doped Tunable Polymer Lasers
B. H. Soffer abd B. B. McFarland, Continuously tunable narrow-band organic dye lasers, Appl. Phys. Lett. 10, 266-267 (1967).
O. G. Peterson and B. B. Snavely, Stimulated emission from flashlamp-excited organic dyes in polymethyl methacrylate, Appl. Phys. Lett. 12, 238-240 (1968).
Second Generation Solid-State Dye-Doped Tunable Polymer Lasers
D. P. Pacheco et al., A solid-state flashlamp-pumped dye laser employing polymer hosts, in Proceedings of the International Conference on Lasers '87 (STS, McLean, VA, 1988) pp. 330-337.
A. Maslyukov et al., Solid-state dye laser with modified poly(methyl methacrylate)-doped active elements, Appl. Opt. 34, 1516-1518 (1995).
A. Costela et al., Solid-state dye lasers based on modified rhodamine 6G dyes copolymerized with methacrylic monomers, J. Appl. Phys. 80, 3167-3173 (1996).
A. Mandl et al., Energy scaling and beam quality studies of a zig-zag solid-state plastic dye laser, IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 32, 1723-1726 (1996).
D. P. Pacheco et al., Efficient laser-pumped solid-state dye laser technology, in Proceedings of the International Conference on Lasers '95 (STS, McLean, VA, 1996) pp. 791-801 [Note: these proceedinds include 12 papers on the subject of organic polymer lasers].
These compact dispersive laser oscillators have been shown to yield beam divergences ~ 1.5 times the diffraction limit and single-longitudinal-mode emission at laser linewidths of ~ 350 MHz. Emission pulses are in the ns regime at peak powers in the kW range. Continuous tunability has been demonstrated in the 550-600 nm region.
F. J. Duarte, Solid-state multiple-prism grating dye laser
oscillators, Appl. Opt. 33, 3857-3860 (1994).
F. J. Duarte, Solid-state dispersive dye laser oscillator: very
compact cavity, Opt. Commun. 117, 480-484 (1995).
F. J. Duarte, Multiple-prism near-grazing-incidence grating solid-state dye laser oscillator, Opt. Laser Technol. 29, 513-516 (1997).
F. J. Duarte et al., Long-pulse narrow-linewidth dispersive solid-state dye-laser oscillator, Appl. Opt. 37, 3987-3989 (1998).
F. J. Duarte, Multiple-prism grating solid-state dye laser oscillator: optimized architecture, Appl. Opt. 38, 6347-6349 (1999).
Interferogram showing single-longitudinal-mode emission from multiple-prism grating solid-state- dye laser oscillator (from Duarte (1995)). Note that these images were originally recorded on black and white silver-halide film and have been colored to approximate the emission of the laser.
Y. Oki et al., Long lifetime and high repetition rate operation from distributed feedback plastic waveguided dye lasers, Opt. Commun. 214, 277-283 (2002).
Y. Oki et al., Wide-wavelength range operation of a distributed-feedback
dye laser with a plastic waveguide, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 41,
6370-6374 (2002).
D. Gindre et al., Refractive-index saturation-mediated multiple line emission in polymer thin-film distributed- feedback lasers, Opt. Lett. 31, 1657-1659 (2006).
Examples of Disclosed Methods of Excitation for Solid-State Dye-Doped Polymer Lasers
O. G. Peterson and B. B. Snavely, Stimulated emission from flashlamp-excited organic dyes in polymethyl methacrylate, Appl. Phys. Lett. 12, 238-240 (1968).
R. Scheps, Low threshold diode-pumped tunable dye laser, US Patent 5530711 (1996).
A. Costela et al., High repetition rate polymeric solid-state dye lasers pumped by a copper-vapor laser, Appl. Phys. Lett. 79, 452-454 (2001).
F. J. Duarte, Light-emitting diode pumped laser and method of excitation, US 2005/0083986 (2005).
Recent Advances in Organic Polymer Gain Media
A. Maslyukov et al., Solid state dye laser with modified poly(methyl methacrylate)-doped active elements, Appl. Opt. 34, 1516-1518 (1995).
R. Gvishi et al., New laser medium: dye-doped sol-gel fiber, Opt. Commun. 126, 66-72 (1996).
G. D. Peng et al., Broadband tunable optical amplification in rhodamine B-doped step-index polymer optical fibre, Opt. Commun. 129, 353-357 (1996).
W. Holzer et al., Photo-physical characterization of rhodamine 6 G in a 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate methyl methacrylate copolymer, Chem. Phys. 256, 125-136 (2000).
F. J. Duarte and R. O. James, Tunable solid-state lasers incorporating dye-doped polymer-nanoparticle gain media,Opt. Lett. 28, 2088-2090 (2003).
F. J. Duarte and R. O. James, Spatial structure of dye-doped polymer-nanoparticle laser media, Appl. Opt. 43, 4088-4090 (2004).
A. Costela el at., Silicon-containing organic matrices as hosts for highly photostable solid-state dye lasers,
Appl. Phys. Lett. 85, 2160-2162 (2004).
H. Watanabe et al., Waveguide dye laser including a SiO2
nanoparticle-dispersed random scattering active media, Appl. Phys. Lett.
86, 151123 (2005).
A. Costela el at., Highly photostable solid-state dye lasers based on silicon-modified organic matrices,
J. Appl. Phys. 101, 073110 (2007).
Reviews Including Non-Dye-Doped Polymer Gain Media
G. Kranzelbinder and G. Leising, Organic solid-state lasers, Rep. Prog. Phys. 63, 729-762 (2000).
I. D. W. Samuel and G. A. Turnbull, Organic semiconductor lasers, Chem. Rev. 107, 1272-1295 (2007).
