Thermal and optical properties of polymer hosts for solid-state dye lasers

Thermal effects in thin-film organic solid-state lasers

With the recent development of organic solid-state lasers (OSSLs) architectures enabling power scaling and progresses towards continuous-wave operation, the question of thermal effects now arises in OSSLs. In this paper, a Rhodamine 640-PMMA based vertical external cavity surface emitting organic laser is investigated. A thermal microscope is used to record temperature maps at the organic thin film surface during laser action; those maps are compared with time-resolved finite element thermal simulations. The measured and simulated peak temperature rises are in good accordance and are shown to remain below 10 K in standard operating conditions, showing a negligible impact on performance. The validated model is used to investigate typical OSSL structures from the literature, in a virtual high average power regime, and up to the CW regime. It is shown that whenever true CW organic lasing will be realized, significant thermal effects will have to be considered and properly managed.

Solid state dye lasers based on LDS 698 doped in modified polymethyl methacrylate

Broad band solid state dye lasers based on LDS 698 doped in modified polymethyl methacrylate (MPMMA) with laser wavelength about 650 nm were demonstrated. It was demonstrated that the fluorescence spectra of LDS 698 in solid host MPMMA displays an obvious blue shift about 50 nm comparing with that in ethanol solution. The dye concentration has great effect on the laser's performance including laser slope efficiency and lifetime. The lifetime increased dramatically with the increase of the LDS 698 concentration. With pump repetition rate of 10 Hz and intensity of 0.1 J/cm(2), the maximum lifetime 300,000 shots corresponding normalized photostability 102 GJ/mol was obtained with LDS 698 at 1.5 x 10(-4)mol/L.