We compare the Amplified Spontaneous Emission (ASE) of the proton transfer dyes 2-(2'-hydroxyphenyl) benzimidazole (HPBI) and 2-(2'-hydroxy-5'-chlorphenyl)benzimidazole (Cl-HPBI) in three different polymeric hosts under UV pulsed laser excitation. Pulseform and degradation of the dyes in the solid polymers were analysed. Spectroscopic data were used in a simple four-level kinetic rate equation system, in the attempt to explain the observed results, i.e. first order exponential decay of maximum output energy and pulse shortening. The model includes transitions for the normal and tautomer form of the molecule as well as intersystem crossing and triplet-triplet transitions.
