Tunable solid-state laser based on modified polymethyl methacrylate with methanol doped with Pyrromethene 580.

Solid-state dye material was fabricated by doping a laser dye Pyrromethene 580 (PM580) into the polymer host polymethyl methacrylate. Methanol was also injected into the host to improve the optical properties. The broadband and narrowband laser performances of the sample were studied in this paper. When the selected solid-state dye PM580 was placed in a Shoshan-type oscillator, narrow linewidth operation with a tuning range of 52 nm and good photostability was demonstrated. The narrowband laser output slope efficiency of 42.7% was obtained, and the corresponding broadband laser slope efficiency was 66.0%. To the best of our knowledge, the narrowband slope efficiency and tunable range are the best under similar conditions so far. For broadband and narrowband lasers, the beam quality factors were estimated to be M(y)(2)=10.7 and 3.9 in the vertical direction.