Polymeric solid-state dye lasers:: Recent developments

An up-to-date overview of the results obtained by our group on the development of polymeric solid-state dye lasers based on dipyrromethene.BF2 complexes is presented. It is shown that appropriate chemical modifications in the dye molecules can yield dyes that lase efficiently and with remarkable photostability when properly incorporated into adequate polymeric matrices. Our results compare favourably with those reported by other authors with the dyes incorporated into organic materials and open the way to the development of solid-state dye lasers competitive with their liquid counterparts.