Glycidyl methacrylate as a new host material for laser dyes

This article reports on the laser action of pyrromethene 597 and pyrromethene 567 doped in the novel solid polymeric matrix glycidyl methacrylate. Mirrorless lasing was observed when samples with diameters of 10 mm and lengths of 20 mm, with different dyes concentrations, were transversely pumped at 532 nm. The influence of the dye concentration on the laser measurements included the peak wavelengths, output energies, conversion efficiencies, and laser gains. Relatively high lasing efficiencies (up to ∼ 60%) were obtained from these new polymeric materials with very good photostability, where a decrease of only 65% in the initial laser output energy was observed after pumping by 60,000 shots of 15 mJ at 10 Hz. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 103: 59–63, 2007