Yuji OKI, Shotaro MIYAWAKI, Mitsuo MAEDA and Masamitsu TANAKA¹

Graduate School of ISEE, Kyushu University, 6-10-1 Hakozaki, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 812-8581, Japan
¹Seiko Electric Co., Ltd., 20-1, Tenjin 3-chome, Koga, Fukuoka 811-3197, Japan

(Received November 15, 2004; Accepted April 20, 2005)

A novel type of tunable laser is developed that integrates dye-doped plastics laser waveguides with a distributed feedback structure. The waveguide matrix is dye doped poly-hydroxyethylmethacrylate:methylmethacrylate, and a single-mode waveguide is achieved by refractive index control. The wavelength coverage is over 560–1100 nm using a frequency doubled Nd:YAG microchip laser. The miniaturizing of the optical-pumped solid-state dye laser extended the lifetime to more than million shots and decreased the required laser threshold energy to less than 1 μJ. Novel type spectroscopic applications using the multiple wavelength laser array chip are also proposed and demonstrated.

Key words: dye laser, plastic, PMMA, spectroscopy, distributed feedback, waveguide, NIR spectroscopy