Agile solid state dye lasers

Different organic dye molecules were incorporated in solid gels by the sol gel process with a view to develop tunable solid state laser applications. We studied the laser efficiency of these materials by using a nanosecond frequency doubled Nd:YAG as the pump laser. Slope efficiency up to 30 % with 3 mJ output energy and half energy lifetime of 40,000 shots were thus obtained. This large lifetime was observed with the perylene red molecules despite of a lower slope efficiency (19%). Tunability over 50 nm was obtained with the perylene or pyrromethene dyes and 75 nm in the case of the xanthylium dye