Hybrid Materials for Solid-State Dye Laser Applications

Abstract

The quest for a solid-state tunable dye laser can be satisfied by sol-gel prepared organic-inorganic hybrids. A photostability study of porous silica-Rhodamine 6G hybrids prepared via a sol-gel method is presented. The dye molecules can be incorporated into the silica matrix by forming weak or covalent bonds (hybrids of classes I and II, respectively). New class II samples and traditional class I materials prepared by the pre-doping method were synthesized. Samples were characterized by photoluminescence measurements to compare the emission properties and the photostability of the samples. The decay of the fluorescence signal as the cumulative excitation energy increases is reported and interpreted by hypothesizing that the dye molecules can be hosted in different surroundings within the porous glass matrix. The reported photoluminescence and photobleaching features indicate the class II samples as good candidates for solid-state dye lasers.

Comparative Photostability Studies of BODIPY and Fluorescein Dyes by Using Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy

“…[1,12] Photostability is also explored on the single-molecule level by immobilizing single molecules on a surface or in a polymer matrix and monitoring the off-rate of their fluorescence signal. [19,20,22,25] But due to the different environment in a matrix compared to the liquid phase, the access of oxygen to the dyes is altered. Also, the probability of ionization changes.…”

Fluorescence properties of dye doped mesoporous silica

“…2: a blue shift of the peak position for hybrids of class I and an enlargement of the PL width for both class I and II specimens is clearly observed. [28] These effects have been already reported for dye molecules hosted in porous glass materials and are related to surface polarity effect and restriction on the mobility of the molecules. [8,48] It is interesting to note that class II samples present a PL band larger at larger wavelength with respect to class I samples, an indication of a larger distribution of emitting centers.…”

“…Absorbance measurements were carried out by exciting the samples with a 100 W tungsten lamp and recording the transmitted signal with the photonic multichannel analyzer (Hamamatsu PMA-11, spectral resolution 1 nm). Different sets of type I and type II hybrids of silica and Rh6G were investigated, prepared according to different recipes as reported elsewhere [27,28]. In the case of type I samples, both pre-doping and post doping were studied.…”

“…In the last years our endeavor has been dedicated to study hybrid systems for photonic and biomediacal applications, in particular taking into account a model system obtained by combining mesoporous silica and Rhodamine 6G (Rh6G) [27,28,[36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46]. In this paper we report a review of the results we obtained in this study and the perspective of future developments.…”

Unprecedented solid-state laser action from BODIPY dyes under UV-pumping radiation

“…To date, progress in host material processing has led to highly efficient and photostable tunable SSDL in the green-red (550-750 nm) spectral region based on polymeric matrices doped with organic dyes [1]. The high photostability demonstrated with these materials ensures long operating lifetimes of the active laser media with output power characteristics being on a par with those obtained in liquid solutions [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. Nevertheless, these SSDL systems only could reach their commercial marketplace in a wide range of applications spanning different fields such as spectroscopy, nonlinear optics, medicine, communication and industry [12,13], if they offer the same wavelength coverage reached with liquid dye lasers.…”