Output performance of a dye-doped sol-gel silica laser in the near UV

Abstract

Visibly transparent near-UV dye (Exalite 377E)-doped silica in the form of parallelepiped were prepared by the low-temperature sol-gel process. The laser output performance of dye-doped sol-gel silica samples pumped by a short pulse (1 ns) N2 laser at 337 nm was reported. With a grating as the wavelength selection element, the laser was tuned from 367 to 387 nm with a laser linewidth of 2 nm. Using a resonator cavity consisting of two flat mirrors, the sol-gel laser showed a slope efficiency of 34.7% and a pump energy threshold of 20 μJ. The variation of sol-gel laser energy output as a function of the number of pulses under repetitive N2 laser excitation was investigated. The laser output energy decreased initially with the number of shots. The output energy recovered to its original intensity after a ten minute interruption in pumping. In this way, the dye-doped samples showed no signs of long term degradation after being irradiated at 337 nm for tens of thousand shots.

Study of assembly of arachidic acid/LDHs hybrid films containing photoactive dyes

“…The inorganic host matrixes not only modify the photochemical and photophysical properties of the dyes intercalated into the host materials, but also improve the thermal and photostability of the dyes [6,7]. Among the numerous inorganic matrixes, ordered and constrained host matrixes are the preferred candidates, such as clay minerals, layered double hydroxides (LDHs), zirconium phosphate [8], and so on [9,10].…”

“…Layered LDHs microcrystals possess a two-dimensional interlayer space due to the stacking of M(OH) 6 …”

Lasing characteristics of Rhodamine B and Rhodamine 6G as a sensitizer in sol–gel silica

“…These samples are optically transparent, hard and resistant to dye leaching and to chemical attacks. The laser output performance of dyedoped sol-gel silica samples pumped by a short pulse (1 ns) N2 laser at 337 nm was reported [23]. Using a resonator cavity consisting of two flat mirrors, the sol-gel laser showed a slope efficiency of 34.7% and a pump energy threshold of 20 mJ.…”

Photo-physical properties and amplified spontaneous emission of a new derivative of fluorescein

“…In recent years, the synthesis of new high-performance dyes and the implementation of new ways of incorporating the organic molecules into the solid matrix have resulted in significant advances towards the development of practical tunable solid-state dye lasers [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. Most of the recent work in solid-state dye lasers has been done using either polymers, silica gels and glass-polymer composites [17] as host materials for lasing dyes.…”