High-performance solid-state dye laser based on perylene-orange-doped polycom glass

The new laser dye, perylene orange, doped into polycom glass (sol-gel glass-poly(methyl methacrylate) composite) has been developed into a tunable gain material with high performance. A sample polished to 0.02 mu m smoothness and lambda/5 flatness, over the central region, was excited in an optical cavity with a second harmonic Q-switched Nd-doped yttrium aluminium garnet laser as a pump source. The solid-state dye laser had a threshold of 53 mu J, a slope efficiency of 72% and a normalized photostability of 50 GJ mol(-1). The laser damage thresholds of various host materials were obtained and the damage threshold of polycom glass was found to be 26 J cm(-2). The beam profile of a He-Ne laser transmitted through samples of host material showed that the optical homogeneity of polycom glass is approaching that of pure polymers.