Abstract

Realization of a compact, robust, highly stable, and efficient solid-state distributed feedback (DFB) dye laser based on pyrromethene 580-doped modified poly-(methyl methacrylate) embedded into nanoporous glass host is reported. A diode-pumped solid-state STA01SH-500 Nd:LSB microlaser ($\lambda =532\mathrm{nm}$; ${\tau }_{0.5}\sim 0.5\mathrm{ns}$; $E_P\le 80\mathrm{\mu J}$; $f\le 500\mathrm{Hz}$) is used as a pump source. When pumped well above threshold, a DFB laser emits a train of ultrashort pulses ($\tau \le 1\mathrm{ns}$; ${\tau }_{0.5}<0.5\mathrm{ns}$; $\mathrm{\Delta }{\lambda }_{0.5}\le 0.01\mathrm{nm}$), while at excitation intensities not far from threshold, single transform-limited picosecond pulses (${\tau }_{0.5}\le 40\mathrm{ps}$; ${\tau }_{0.5}\mathrm{\Delta }{\nu }_{0.5}\sim 0.3$), tunable from 541 to 598 nm, are generated. The DFB lasing efficiency reaches $\sim 60\%$ upon an energy stability of $\sim 1.4\%$ and an overall service life of the active element of $\sim 9\times {10}^7$ laser shots. More than an order of magnitude increase in the temperature stability of a lasing wavelength as compared with ethanol solutions of laser dyes is practically demonstrated.

© 2015 Optical Society of America

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