Organic-inorganic Hybrid Solid-state Dye Laser Medium Based On Distributed Feedback

Tunable solid-state dye lasers (SSDL) are useful devices for applications ranging from medicine to remote sensing. Lasers with distributed feedback (DFB) require no external cavity and can generate tunable output with narrow linewidth. Optical planar waveguides based on sol-gel have generated much research interests recently because of the versatility of the sol-gel technique and the potential applications in integrated optics.In this work, Laser dyes including pyrromethene 567 (PM567), perylene-orange (P-orange) and perylene red (P-red) were doped into zirconia-organically modified silicates (ORMOSILs) by sol-gel process, respectively, with MTES, VTES, ETES, KH560 and TMSPM as organic modifiers. Dye-doped zirconia and zirconia-ORMOSILs films were fabricated by spin-coating on glass substrates with the final solutions. The waveguiding characteristics of the thin films such as surface morphology, transmission loss, refractive index and the film thickness were measured. The effects of zirconia contents and organically modified precursors on the photostability of the laser dyes doped into films were investigated by measuring fluorescence intensity dependence of the films on exposure time under UV irradiation.The waveguiding characteristics were related to the spin-coating velocity, the aging time, the kinds of ORMOSILs and the content of Zr. The thickness decreased with increased in velocity and aging time. The refractive index increased with increased the content of Zr.The most appropriate zirconia content was found to be 50%. VTES was found to be the best precursor in PM567 and P-red. TMSPM was found to be the best precursor in P-orange.DFB laser action was induced in the waveguide structure by the crossing beams of a frequency-doubled neodymium:YAG laser. Tunable DFB laser action was also achieved in the asymmetric waveguides.The broad tunable range of single dye doped in Zr-ORMOSILs is about 20nm.Dye pair combinations consisting of coumarin dyes, PM567 and P-red with coumarin dyes and PM567 as donor dyes and P-red as acceptor are employed as dopants to incorporate into solid-state host materials via sol-gel process. High laser efficiency, wide tunable range and high photostability are achieved. Especially, the ratio of C540A:PM567:P-red=2.5:2:l presents highly efficient and widely tunable. The tunable range from 562.3 nm to 642.4 nm, more than 80 nm, is achieved with peak conversion efficiency as high as 2.4%. This is the widest tunable range ever been reported for SSDL materials in this spectrum region from green to red.The broad tunable range of P-red co-doped with PM567 and C540A in Zr-ORMOSILs is improved as wide as 69nm, from 564.685nm to 623.645nm.