A number of novel near infrared oxazine laser dyes have been designed, synthesized and purified. The photophysical and lasing properties of these near infrared laser dyes are reported in this paper.
The dyes have been found to exhibit moderately high fluorescence quantum efficiencies. Laser testing has been undertaken on the novel oxazine dyes and the results have been compared with those obtained with commercially available near infrared laser dyes.
The photophysical and lasing properties of a number of near infrared laser dyes from different dye classes - extended rhodamines, oxazines, cyanine and styryl dyes - predominantly in liquids but also in poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) based hosts are reported in this paper. The different dyes have been found to exhibit fluorescence quantum efficiencies in the range of 0.01-0.88 in solution. The fluorescence efficiency for a number of the dyes has been found to be heavily dependent on the solvent characteristics. Laser slope efficiencies in the range of 20-66% have been recorded for the dyes under nanosecond laser pumping at or close to the wavelength of their absorption maximum. The lasing wavelengths of the samples were found to range from 647 nm to 815 nm. Some differences in the lasing efficiency has been noted between the behaviour of the liquid and solid-state dye samples, in particular for the dye Oxazine 1. A number of the dye/solvent combinations have been further tested in a flashlamp pumped dye laser apparatus with success, with moderate laser efficiency at lasing wavelengths ranging from 692 to 824 nm having been achieved.
Studies of the lasing characteristics of three pyrromethene laser dyes (pyrromethene 567, 580 and 597) in modified polymethyl methacrylate have been carried out under flashlamp excitation. Comparison are made of the optical qualities, output energy and other lasing properties. Output energies of over 1 Joule per shot have been achieved with an electrical stored energy to output energy efficiency of almost 0.5%.
Flashlamp pumped dye lasers are a well known source of high power, tunable, visible radiation by dye solution photo-degradation restricts their operational life and so limits their applications. This study is the first stage in the development of a selective process to extend their life. Initial studies have shown that, in methanol and water Rhodamine 590 chloride solutions, very few of the dye molecules are lost when lasing action ceases and that the cause of the reduced output is a build-up of optical losses at the lasing wavelength.
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