Optical characterization of a laser dye in a solid state host

The optical properties of C18H16N2O2B2F4H2O, an organic laser dye embedded in solid plastic host, have been characterized for a number of laser wavelengths in the visible region. The index of refraction of the dye in plastic host is measured by the conventional method of minimum deviation at these wavelengths. The inverse adding doubling method based on the diffusion approximation and radiative transport theory have been employed to determine the absorption, scattering, and scattering anisotropy coefficients of the dye in plastic host from the measurements of total diffuse transmittance, total diffuse reflectance, and collimated transmittance using an integrating sphere. The total attenuation coefficients obtained by this method have been compared with those determined by the collimated transmission and from the total attenuation measurement. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.