轴向隐失波激励的回音壁模式光纤激光器

采用轴向隐失波激励增益的方式,使激光增益区域局限在光纤回音壁模式的模场区域内,显著地降低了回音壁模式光纤激光辐射的抽运阈值,由此形成一种低阈值的回音壁模式光纤激光器.在微焦耳量级的低抽运能量条件下,用回音壁模式光纤激光器研究了激光染料的浓度效应.实验结果表明,随着激光染料浓度的增加,回音壁模式激光辐射的波长向长波方向移动,激光波长范围变宽.用回音壁模式染料激光的四能级模型得到激光上能级和所有能级上的分子数比值γ(λ)曲线后,很好地解释了实验结果.低抽运阈值的回音壁模式光纤激光器,为研究液体激光现象提供了极为便利的手段.     

Two-photon absorption-induced optical properties of a new lasing dye in two solvents

Pumped by an infrared lasing and its frequency-doubling source, the fluorescence and superradiance emission properties of a new lasing dye trans-4-[4^′-(N,N-diethylamino)styryl]-N-methyl pyridinium methyl sulfate (abbreviated DEASPS), have been studied in benzyl alcohol and chloroform. The two-photon absorption (TPA) and emission properties of DEASPSare influenced by the solvents used. The emission wavelength of the dye in benzyl alcohol is redshifted relative to that in chloroform. The lifetime of two-photon absorption-induced fluorescence is about 529 ps in benzyl alcohol, whereas it is 340 ps in chloroform. Correspondingly, the one-photon-excited fluorescence lifetimes in the two solvents are also given. The upconversion efficiency of DEASPS in chloroform is higher than in benzyl alcohol. Finally, the effective molecular two-photon absorption cross-sections were measured by the nonlinear transmittance method. It is found that the optical limiting effect of the dye in benzyl alcohol is stronger than that in chloroform. Received: 3 May 2001 / Revised version: 6 July 2001 / Published online: 19 September 2001     

Cavity-Q-driven phenomena in an evanescent-wave pumped and gain coupled whispering-gallery-mode fiber laser

We study cavity-Q-driven lasing wavelength shift and line-width widening in an evanescent-wave pumped and gain coupled Whispering-Gallery-Mode (WGM) fiber lasers. A bare optical fiber is immersed in a lower refractive index (RI) dye solution, pumped and gain coupled by evanescence waves, and linearly polarized WGM lasing emission is observed from the rim of the fiber. We find that both lasing wavelengths and line width of WGM peaks are sensitive to the RI of the dye solution and the fiber diameter, with the increase of the RI of the dye solution or decrease of the fiber diameter, a blue shift of the lasing spectrum and a widening on the spectral line width are observed. The observed phenomena have been attributed to the change of quality factor of a circular cavity built in the fiber cross section, the achieved experimental data agree well with the calculated values of the quality factor.     

Whispering gallery mode microlasers and refractive index sensing based on single polymer fiber

The realization of whispering gallery mode (WGM) lasing in polymer fibers is hindered by an appropriate method to dissolve the polymer and the gain material. In this work, microfibers fabricated by directly drawing from a dye doped polymer solution are exhibited as high quality microlasers and microsensors. Multi‐mode and even single‐mode lasing is observed from the fiber under optical pumping at room temperature. The linewidth of lasing mode is narrower than 0.09 nm. The lasing mechanism is unambiguously verified by comprehensive spectroscopic analysis and ascribed to WGMs. Diameter‐ and polarization‐dependent lasing characteristics are systematically investigated, showing good agreement with the theoretical calculation. Particularly, application of the fiber laser for refractive index sensing based on resonant shift of lasing mode is demonstrated and the sensitivity up to about 300 nm/RIU is achieved. The promising potential of high quality polymer microfibers as optical sensors and multi‐function components for flexible photonic integrated systems is highly expected.     

Spectroscopic and lasing characteristics of 1,3,5,7-tetramethyl-8-ethyl-pyrromethene-BF2 complex

The basic optical properties of the newly synthesized pyrromethene-BF2 derivative (Compound 1) were investigated systematically by its ultraviolet to visible (UV-visible) absorption, fluorescence and triplettriplet absorption. Its lasing characteristics were measured on a dye laser system pumped by a continuous wave Ar ion laser. The results suggest that, compared with the typical pyrromethene-BF2 dye such as P546, Compound 1 possesses stronger fluorescence and lower triplet-triplet absorption over its fluorescence spectral region. Excellent laser properties were also observed for Compound 1. It outperforms the commercially available benchmark laser dye rhodamine 6G in laser wavelength tuning range, which proves that Compound 1 is probably a potential candidate to be developed as the all-solid-state laser material.     

Multi-purpose nonlinear optical microscope. Its principle and applications to polar thin-film observation

Multi-purpose nonlinear optical microscope is an optical microscope which images 2D distribution of the optical second harmonic (SH) waves from a specimen. Image contrast can be obtained either by inhomogeneous distribution of nonlinear optical tensor components or by the interference between SH waves from a specimen and a standard plate. This microscope also functions as a fluorescence (FL) microscope, and SH and FL images can be obtained from the same part of a specimen. Absorption and FL spectra from a specific part of a specimen are measured through an optical fiber which connects an ocular with a polychromator. These functions are especially useful for investigation of the J-aggregate state of polar dye molecules. Several photographs taken by the microscope revealed the structure of merocyanine dye/arachidic acid mixed monolayer and the role of bridge ions in the subphase. Fiz. Tverd. Tela (St. Petersburg) 41, 764–769 (May 1999) Published in English in the original Russian journal. Reproduced here with stylistic changes by the Translation Editor.     

Third-order optical nonlinearities and optical-limiting properties of a Pararosanilin dye in liquid and solid media

Solid-state dye-doped polymers are attractive alternatives to the conventional liquid-dye solutions. In this paper, the third-order nonlinear optical properties of a Pararosanilin dye in 1-Butanol and a dye-doped polymer film were measured by the Z-scan technique using a continuous wave 532-nm diode-pumped Nd:Yag laser. This material exhibits a negative optical nonlinearity. The low-power optical-limiting properties based on the nonlinear refraction of this material have also been studied.     

Photostability of lasing process from water solution of Rhodamine 6G with gold nanoparticles

We report the lasing performance and photobleaching of gain material containing a water solution of Rhodamine 6G dye and gold nanoparticles (NPs). In comparison to a pure dye solution, the investigated material demonstrated both enhancement and quenching of the lasing output, depending on the relative concentration of the gold NPs. Although the presence of NPs with an optimized concentration looks preferable in terms of the lasing output enhancement, such additives deteriorate the operational resource of the gain material; i.e., the photobleaching rate speeds up.     

Photo-stability of laser dye solutions under Copper-vapour-laser excitation

The photo-stability of laser dyes, Rhodamine-6G, Rhodamine-B, and Kiton-Red, under high repetition rate (6.3 kHz) Copper-vapour-laser (CVL) irradiation has been investigated. Exhaustive photo-bleaching of these dyes in different solvents has been carried out to study the extent to which the dye photo-degraded products would interfere with the lasing process in high-power CVL-pumped dye lasers. Our results indicate that the photo-degradation of dyes occurs predominantly through excited-state intermolecular reactions, involving the singlet state, rather than the process of nonlinear optical absorption in individual molecules. Received: 13 March 2000 / Revised version: 2 August 2000 / Published online: 21 March 2001     

溶剂对光致变色材料-乙基红的光学特性影响

研究了溶剂性质对光致变色材料乙基红光学性质的影响.用吸收谱测定了乙基红染料在不同溶剂中的溶剂化位移.对相同浓度多种乙基红溶液进行了Z-scan测量,测量了不同乙基红溶液的光限幅效应,并讨论了其与溶剂之间的关系.随极性增加,吸收谱蓝移,可以通过选择不同溶剂,改变非线性材料的应用窗口.实验结果表明,在连续光照射下,乙基红溶液的非线性折射主要由热效应引起,非线性折射系数n2受溶剂的热学性质影响较大.此外,Z-scan结果中的非线性吸收为饱和吸收.至于光限幅效应,主要受热效应影响,但亦可由吸收谱预测出在某波长处的动态范围.得出的结论有助于偶氮染料作为非线性材料的应用.     

Spectral and nonlinear studies of an aniline blue dye in liquid and solid media

Solid-state dye-doped polymers are an attractive alternative to conventional liquid dye solutions. In this paper, the spectral characteristics and nonlinear properties of the Aniline Blue dye has been studied. The third-order nonlinear optical properties of the Aniline Blue dye in ethanol and a dye-doped polymer film were measured by the Z-scan technique using a 632.8-nm He-Ne laser. This material exhibits a negative optical non-linearity. The dye at a 0.4-mM concentration exhibited a nonlinear refractive coefficient (n ₂ = ?4.02 × 10^?8 and ?4.41 × 10^?8 cm²/W in liquid and solid media, respectively), a nonlinear absorption coefficient (β = ?9.7 × 10^?4 and ?11.63 × 10^?4 cm/W in liquid and solid media, respectively), and susceptibility (x ⁽³⁾ = 1.844 × 10^?6 and 2.028 × 10^?6 esu in liquid and solid media, respectively). These results show that the Aniline Blue dye has potential applications in nonlinear optics.     

A new family of lasing dyes from an old family of fluors

We report the development of a new series of laser dyes and describe the performance of these materials. This work was spurred by the realization that few laser dyes have an optimally shaped fluorescence emission for lasing action. Most of the dipole strength of the transition is concentrated in the 0.0 band, where lasing cannot occur, and very little is concentrated in the vibrational satellites 0–1 and 0–2 where lasing is possible. The new dyes are unsymmetrical materials which may be considered as a hybrid of a rhodamine molecule and a fluorescein molecule (fig. 1), and we consider them to be cyclized merocyanines. One dye in particular, 6-dimethylamino-9-o-carboxyphenylxanthen-3H-one (labelled SNH-8), has given power output and time stability better than the preferred lasing dye Rhodamine 6G. The effects of dye structure and of acid-base transitions on lasing activity will be discussed briefly. The theory of band-shaping and the detailed optical parameters of the new dyes will be presented separately.     

Z-scan determination of the third-order optical nonlinearities of an azo dye using diode-pumped Nd:Yag laser

Optical nonlinearity of dye solutions are studied with considerable interest for their wide spread applications ranging from gain media in lasers to all-optical processing signal devices. The third-order nonlinear optical properties of Brilliant Crocein dye was measured by the Z-scan technique and measurements were carried out for different concentrations. The negative sign of the nonlinear refractive index n₂ indicates that this material exhibits self-defocusing optical nonlinearity and purely saturation absorption at the wavelength 532 nm of the diode-pumped Nd:YAG. These results show that Brilliant Crocein has potential applications in nonlinear optics.     

Theoretical study about the gain in indirect bandgap semiconductor optical cavities

Indirect bandgap semiconductors such as silicon are not efficient light emitters because a phonon with a high momentum is required to transfer an electron from the conduction to the valence band. In a recent study (M.J. Chen et al., 2006) [6] an analytical expression of the optical gain in bulk indirect bandgap semiconductors was obtained. The main conclusion was that the free-carrier absorption was much higher than the optical gain at ambient temperature, which prevents lasing. In this work, we consider the case in which the semiconductor material is engineered to form an optical cavity characterized by a certain Purcell factor. We conclude that although the optical gain is increased, losses due to free carriers increase in the same way so lasing is also prevented even when creating a high-Q optical cavity.     

Spectral characteristics and nonlinear studies of methyl violet 2B dye in liquid and solid media

Solid-state dye-doped polymers are attractive alternatives to the conventional liquid-dye solutions. In this paper, the spectral characteristics and nonlinear properties of the dye Methyl violet 2B has been studied. The third-order nonlinear optical properties of Methyl violet 2B dye in ethanol and a dye-doped polymer film were measured by the Z-scan technique. This material exhibits a negative optical nonlinearity. The dye exhibited a nonlinear refractive coefficient (n ₂ = ?4.14 × 10^?7 and ?4.291 × 10^?7 cm²/W in liquid and solid media, respectively), nonlinear absorption coefficient (β = ?4.634 × 10^?3 and ?4.66 × 10^?3 cm/W in liquid and solid media, respectively), and susceptibility (χ⁽³⁾ = 1.88 × 10^?5 and 1.963 × 10^?5 esu in liquid and solid media, respectively). These results show that Methyl violet 2B dye has potential applications in nonlinear optics.     

Multiwavelength erbium-doped fiber laser employing a nonlinear optical loop mirror

A stable and broad bandwidth multiwavelength erbium-doped fiber laser is proposed and demonstrated successfully. A nonlinear optical loop mirror which induces wavelength-dependent cavity loss and behaves as an amplitude equalizer is employed to ensure stable room-temperature multiwavelength operation. Up to 50 wavelengths lasing oscillations with wavelength spacing of 0.8 nm within a 3-dB spectral range of 1562-1605 nm has been achieved. The measured power fluctuation of each wavelength is about 0.1 dB within a 2-h period.     

Photophysical properties and laser performance of rubrene

The potential of rubrene as a laser dye was investigated in deaerated solutions with a XeCl excimer laser as pump source. Laser tuning range, quantum efficiency and photostability as well as excited singlet state absorption (ESA) spectra were measured. The (S₁-S₂) absorption band strongly overlaps with the fluorescence spectrum and thus ESA constitutes an important loss factor in the lasing process while triplet absorption can be neglected in the wavelength region of interest. Laser performance of rubrene is superior compared to other polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons which can be considered as model compounds of the lasing process in organic dyes.     

染料掺杂聚合物薄膜中金纳米颗粒增强的随机激光

基于金属纳米结构而获得随机激光的增强,其独特的性质及其潜在的应用价值具有重要的研究意义,在表面增强荧光、光学开关器件、表面等离子激元激光等方面实现了较多应用。报道一种快捷有效的制备纳米颗粒的手段并基于该纳米颗粒结构分析了染料掺杂聚合物薄膜涂覆的随机激光现象和规律。利用离子溅射沉积和高温热处理在石英基底上制备了Au纳米颗粒,改变溅射时间Au纳米颗粒的尺寸发生可控变化,该方法便捷、工艺简单。研究采用40,80和120 s三种不同的时间进行Au膜溅射并在650 ℃下高温处理,得到粒径尺寸不同的Au纳米颗粒,随着溅射时间延长Au纳米颗粒的尺寸逐渐变大。通过涂覆有机荧光染料DCJTB掺杂的PMMA聚合物薄膜构建光致激射系统,利用纳秒脉冲激光对样品进行激发,得到随机激光并研究其出射光强度和阈值的变化规律特征。40,80和120 s三种溅射时间下所得Au纳米颗粒的平均粒径尺寸分别为230,250和390 nm,在532 nm激光激发下产生随机激光的阈值分别为20.5,17.5和12.5 μJ·pulse-1。Au纳米颗粒尺寸越大、粒子间距越小时,光子散射的平均自由程越短,光在金属颗粒之间可以多次有效散射,从而显著提高散射效率,产生较低阈值的激光发射;Au纳米颗粒的吸收峰与染料的荧光峰恰好匹配时,将会显著增强染料的荧光效应,激发更多染料分子发生能级跃迁,增加光子态密度,获得峰值更高、阈值更低的激射现象;泵浦光不破坏染料分子的情况下,可以多次循环泵浦获得激光,染料分子的发光效率随着多次激发略有降低,有助于随机激光器件的研究开发。实验研究结果与理论分析相一致,进一步明确了Au纳米颗粒对光子散射和等离子共振对光吸收增强的随机激光发射机理。该研究以Au纳米结构对光子的强散射效应为增益,通过理论分析和实验测量获得随机激光,为实现高效率、低阈值的随机激光研究提供了一种便捷的技术手段,有望促进随机激光器件的开发和应用。     

Properties of two-photon fluorescence and superradiance of a new organic dye C46H51N2B

Linear and nonlinear optical properties of a new organic dye, trans-4-[p-(N-n-butyl-N-n-butylamino)-styryl]-N-methyl-pyridinium tetraphenylborate solution in dimethyl formamide (DMF) have been studied systematically. When excited with mode-locked picosecond 1 064 nm laser beam, intense upconversion fluorescence and superradiance can be obtained. The temporal behaviors of one-photon absorption and two-photon absorption (TPA) fluorescence and superradiance have been studied. The highest upconversion efficiency was found to be 4.1% at a pump energy of 4 mJ. By using an optical parameter amplifier (OPA) as the pump laser, the nonlinear transmittance and upconversion efficiencies of the dye solution at different wavelengths were measured. The strongest linear absorption was found at a wavelength of 930 nm whereas the highest upconversion efficiency was at 1 030 nm. The 100 nm red-shift for the highest upconversion efficiency wavelength compared with the strongest nonlinear absorption are caused by excited state absorption. Received 17 October 2001 and Received in final form 21 December 2001     

Spectral and nonlinear studies of night blue dye

Solid-state dye-doped polymer is an attractive alternative to the conventional liquid dye solution. In this Letter the spectral characteristics and the nonlinear optical properties of the dye night blue are studied. The spectral characteristics of night blue dye doped poly(methylmethacrylate) modified with additive n-butyl acetate (nBA) are studied by recording its absorption and fluorescence spectra and the results are compared with the corresponding liquid mixture. The nonlinear refractive index of the dye in nBA and dye doped polymer film were measured using z-scan technique [S.-B., Mansoor, A.A. Said, T.-H. Wei, D.J. Hagan, E.W. Van Stryland, IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 26 (1990) 760], by exciting with He–Ne laser. The results obtained are intercompared. Both the samples of dye night blue show a negative nonlinear refractive index. The origin of optical nonlinearity in the dye may be attributed due to laser-heating induced nonlinear effect.