Enhanced photostability of photoluminescent dye-doped solutions and polymers with the addition of dielectric-oxide micro-particles

Organic dye molecules in both solid polymethyl methacrylate and in solution have been found to display greatly enhanced photostability with the addition of micro-particles. Micro-particle doped poly(methyl methacrylate) samples and solutions were prepared doped with the laser dye pyrromethene 567 and rhodamine 6G. Study of the composite dye material as a gain medium in a laser provided a controlled and sensitive test of the photostability. The micro-particle doped samples used as the active laser medium demonstrated a doubling in service life to 0.4 million pulses compared with undoped samples before the output intensity was reduced to one-half. Further addition of a singlet oxygen quencher (DABCO) enhanced the photostability to 0.6 million pulses. Possible explanations discussed include cavity QED effects, surface photophysical and photochemical interactions and thermo-mechanical effects. These observations are relevant to photoluminescent devices and in general to the photostability of organic molecules.