Photo-Physical Properties of Stilbine-3 (STB-3) Laser Dyes Embedded in Sol-Gel Glasses

Abstract

Solid-state tunable dye laser materials developed by incorporation of stable laser dye molecules into solid host matrices like polymers, organically modified silicates (ORMOSILS) and porous sol-gel glasses. These materials have technical advantages such as compactness, better manageability and suitability for field measurement. The recent research work with highly porous sol-gel glasses having good transparency in UV-Near UV region used as solid host for solid-state dye laser materials has attracted a great deal of attention because of its high potential utility than polymers. Two different procedure’s are used for incorpoerating the Stilbine-3 (STB-3) laser dyes into porous sol-gel matrices such as dope or dip methods. In dope method dye is mixed at the sol state and drying is carried out afterward; while in dip method matrix is first prepared and the matrix is dipped in desired dye solution. After preparation of these dye embedded sol-gel glasses we studied their spectroscopic properties of using absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy. Along with spectroscopy properties, the studies for longevity or the shelf life and lasing action of these materials were carried out. Laser dye STB-3 incorporated in sol-gel glass samples shows the same result as in methanolic solution.