Abstract

In recent years dye doped polymers with excellent photostability and high lasing efficiency have been developed in a number of laboratories [1]. These new doped polymers are a low cost alternative to crystalline solid-state laser materials. To date most work has been conducted at relatively low pulse repetition frequencies (PRFs up to 20 Hz). To avoid photobleaching and thermal lensing problems at high pulse repetition rates the polymer sample may be rotated. For example, 10 kHz 3.5% efficient operation of a F2 dye doped in polyurethane acrylate has been reported by Bondar et al. where a copper vapour laser was used as the pump source to give 70 mW output power. We now report high power operation of solid-state dye lasers operating at a pulse repetition rate of 1 kHz.

© 2000 IEEE