Laser ablation of dyes

Abstract

High density 50 μs pulses of the UV dyes PPF, POPOP and BBO and of two dyes in the visible region, Xanthen N92 and Fluorol 7GA were generated by laser ablation. Dye powders were pressed with 7800 kp/cm 2 in round pellets which were ablated by exposure to KrF excimer laser radiation (248 nm) at a fluence of 100 mJ/cm 2. The ablation cloud was optically activated with a XeCl excimer laser. Its fluorescence spectrum was measured and was identified as a dye vapour fluorescence spectrum by comparison to conventional dye solution and dye vapour spectra. The dye cloud is not deflected in an electric field (10 6 V/m). By changing the delay time between the ablation laser and the focused activation laser, the velocity distribution of the ablated dye was measured. Its maximum is at 600 m/s for PPF. Knowing the thickness of the ablated dye layer per shot (300 Å) and the size of the ablation cloud (pictures of a video camera), one can estimate the maximum density of the dye in the gas pulse to be 10 -5 mol/ l in the range of concentration of lasing dyes. However, no lasing was observed up to now.