The utilization of energy transfer mechanisms to 'down-shift' the high excitation energies of ultraviolet chromophores has significant potential for the improvement of performance of flashlamp-pumped dye lasers. Jones and Rahman (Chem. Phys. Lett. 1992, 200, 241) have demonstrated very efficient fluorescence energy transfer between coumarin laser dyes co- bound to organic polymers in aqueous solution. In the present adaptation of this strategy, dyes have been co-bound by several different means to polymers with varying degrees of energy transfer efficiency. A coumarin (donor) dye has been used to excite pyrromethene (acceptor) laser dyes displaying emission at 560 - 590 nm. Experiments have been performed on (1) combinations of dyes doped into solid poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), (2) a polymer system in which a pyrromethene is covalently attached to the polymer backbone, and (3) dye pairs which are solubilized and co-bound within poly(methacrylic acid) (PMMA), a water- soluble polymer.

Date Published: 25 March 1996
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 2698, Solid State Lasers V, (25 March 1996); doi: 10.1117/12.236170

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 2698:
Solid State Lasers V
Richard Scheps, Editor(s)