Optical properties of a laser dye in a solid-state polymeric host

The optical properties of C ₂₈H ₂₀N ₂O ₂B ₂F ₄H ₂O, an organic laser dye embedded in a solid plastic host, have been characterized for a number of laser wavelengths in the visible region. The index of refraction of the dye in a plastic host is measured by the conventional method of minimum deviation at these wavelengths. The one-dimensional two flux Kubelka-Munk method based on the diffusion approximation has been employed to determine the absorption, scattering, and scattering anisotropy coefficients of the dye in a plastic host from the measurements of total diffuse transmittance, total diffuse reflectance, and collimated transmittance using double-integrating spheres. The total attenuation coefficients obtained by this method have been compared with those determined by the collimated transmission and from the total attenuation measurement on a Cary-14 spectrophotmeter.