In this paper we demonstrate photonic band-edge laser emission from emulsion-based polymer dispersed liquid crystals. The lasing medium consists of dye-doped chiral nematic droplets dispersed within a polymer matrix that spontaneously align as the film dries. Such lasers can be easily formed on single substrates with no alignment layers. The system combines the self-organizing periodic structure of chiral nematic liquid crystals with the simplicity of the emulsion procedure so as to produce a material that retains the emission characteristics of band-edge lasers yet can be readily coated. Sequential and stacked layers demonstrate the possibility of achieving simultaneous multi-wavelength laser output from glass, metallic, and flexible substrates.

Lasing mechanisms within paintable dye-doped chiral liquid crystal emulsions are investigated. Evidence shows that by variation in liquid crystal droplet size, by simple control of mechanical mixing speeds, a change in the lasing mechanism from band-edge lasing (large droplets) to diffuse nonresonant random lasing (small droplets) can be facilitated. This approach represents a facile technique for the variation in lasing mechanism, within a self-organizing, flexible, and conformable system, and offers the opportunity of developing controllable linewidth laser sources.

The primary concern of this work is to study the emission characteristics of a series of chiral nematic liquid crystal lasers doped with different laser dyes ͑DCM, pyrromethene 580, and pyrromethene 597͒ at varying concentrations by weight ͑0.5-2 wt %͒ when optically pumped at 532 nm. Long-wavelength photonic band-edge laser emission is characterized in terms of threshold energy and slope efficiency. At every dye concentration investigated, the pyrromethene 597-doped lasers exhibit the highest slope efficiency ͑ranging from 15% to 32%͒ and the DCM-doped lasers the lowest ͑ranging from 5% to 13%͒. Similarly, the threshold was found to be, in general, higher for the DCM-doped laser samples in comparison to the pyrromethene-doped laser samples. These results are then compared with the spectral properties, quantum efficiencies and, where possible, fluorescence lifetimes of the dyes dispersed in a common nematic host. In accordance with the low thresholds and high slope efficiencies, the results show that the molar extinction coefficients and quantum efficiencies are considerably larger for the pyrromethene dyes in comparison to DCM, when dispersed in the liquid crystal host.

In this letter, we demonstrate high slope efficiency laser emission from reflective liquid crystal laser devices with a silicon backplane. Three different cell architectures were fabricated and each resulting laser device was then characterized in terms of the excitation threshold and the slope efficiency when optically excited close to the absorption maximum of the gain medium ͑pyrromethene 597͒. By combining a high gain medium with double-pass geometry, as well as the optimum cell thickness, the results demonstrate that it is possible to reduce thresholds by 25% and achieve slope efficiencies as high as 60%.