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.
In these solid-state tunable lasers the gain medium is an organic-dye-doped polymer matrix. Usually this matrix is a highly homogenous form of poly(methyl-methacrylate) (PMMA). An additional example of a polymer used as matrix in the gain media of a tunable polymer laser is HEMA:MMA.
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).
Solid-state organic laser incorporating a dye-doped-polymer gain medium in a multiple-prism near grazing-incidence
grating oscillator configuration. This oscillator is excited longitudinally (from Duarte, 1997).
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).
Recent Advances in Solid-State Organic 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).