An optically pumped organic laser using materials having allowed electric dipole fluorescent transitions. These materials include photosensitizing dyes. The active fluorescent materials are pumped with either a laser pulse or a flashlamp pulse, the pumping pulse having a risetime not exceeding a few times the decay time between the first excited singlet state and a triplet state of the fluorescent material.
This application is a continuation in part of application Ser. No. 532,182, filed Mar. 7, 1966 and now abandoned, the latter being assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
Phenoxazine dyes are useful as laser dyes. These dyes are used in solution with a non-interfering solvent to form lasing media useful in dye lasers. Such lasers generally include a reservoir for containing the laser dye solution and a pumping energy source operably associated therewith for producing stimulated emission of the laser dye solution.
Disclosed is an optical gain device comprising an active layer having a film thickness of 1 .mu.m or less, 10% or more by weight of fluorescent organic molecules such as stilbene dye, and a quantum yield of fluorescence of 0.1 or more, the device being capable of exciting the active layer and also waveguiding and amplifying the light emitted from the fluorescent organic molecules. The aforesaid, optical gain device is capable of improving the threshold of excitation intensity as well as the optical gain.
A new type of dye laser in which the dye cell is placed inside a pumping laser resonator is described. Both the dye laser radiation and the pumping laser radiation oscillate inside the same optical cavity. This design has the advantage of automatic alignment of the pumping laser and the pumped laser, as well as the reduction of the thermal problems. In the instance in which the laser frequencies do not differ greatly, automatic mode matching of the pumping laser beam and the pumped laser beam is obtained.
A laser apparatus having a pump laser device for producing pump laser energy upon being excited. The pump laser device having a resonating cavity for oscillating and amplifying the pump laser energy. A source laser device is used for producing source laser energy upon being excited by the pump laser energy, the source laser device having a resonating cavity for oscillating and amplifying the source laser energy. The source laser's resonating cavity is coupled within a portion of the pump laser's resonating cavity.
A laser resonator has a semitransparent outlet mirror and a first mirror, with an active element between the mirrors, all the elements arranged perpendicular to the optical axis of the resonator. A shutter is provided behind the first mirror and a second mirror is arranged behind the shutter, perpendicular to the optical axis of the resonator. The second mirror is fully reflective for radiation with stronger laser transition and the first mirror is fully reflective for radiation with weaker laser transition and fully penetrable for radiation with stronger transition. The resonator can change frequency simply by opening or closing the shutter. It can be advantageously used, for example, in the design and construction of laser scalpels.
