Solid-state Dye-tunable Laser Research

Solid-state dye lasers exhibit some attractive features as compared with conventional liquid-dye lasers, such as lack of toxicity and flammability, compactness and low-cost gain medium which, in addition to being an essentially maintenance-free system, make them suitable for applications in field such as medicine, remote sensing and spectroscopy. The development of tunable solid-state dye lasers in which a polymer or glass host medium is doped with an appropriate dye is an area of active research.To achieve better thermal properties, such as higher thermal conductivity, lower thermal expansion, better mechanical properties and higher damage threshold, both organic polymers and silica-based inorganic polymers obtained by the sol-gel process have been used as hosts for solid dyes. The low-temperature sol-gel process allows the incorporation of organic dyes into silica gel inorganic glasses, resulting in relatively photostable materials with acceptable laser efficiencies. Nevertheless, new modified polymers have been obtained recently with thresholds of damage by laser radiation as high as those of the inorganic materials, and with higher stabilities than those of the silica gels under the same experimental conditions.This thesis reviewed the development of tunable lasers, analyse the character and preparation of laser-dye, and introduce the theory of turnable lasers. Base on analysis and research, using the solid dye samples made by a stepwise synthesis technique through a sol-gel process, some experiments were done. Laser dye doped in the sample is pyrromethene 567. Longitudinally pumped tunable solid-state dye lasers using intra-cavity grating were established with Q-switched frequency-doubled Nd:YAG laser pumping source.With the cavity of output from zero-order diffractive beam, tunable range of about 70nm from 543-610nm had been achieved, and the highest slope efficiency of 17% was obtained at 583nm wavelength. While using the cavity of output from a coupling mirror, tunable range of over 30nm from 553-585nm was obtained, and the...