We report on lasing in rhodamine 6G-doped, conical polymeric microcavities with high quality factors fabricated on a silicon substrate. Threshold pump energies as low as 3 nJ are achieved by free-space excitation in the quasistationary pumping regime with lasing wavelengths around 600 nm. Finite element simulations confirm that lasing occurs in whispering gallery modes which corresponds well to the measured multimode laser-emission. The effect of dye concentration on lasing threshold and lasing wavelength is investigated and can be explained using a standard dye laser model.

Abstract:The fabrication and characterization of continuously tunable, solution-processed distributed feedback (DFB) lasers in the visible regime is reported. Continuous thin film thickness gradients were achieved by means of horizontal dipping of several conjugated polymer and blended small molecule solutions on cm-scale surface gratings of different periods. We report optically pumped continuously tunable laser emission of 13 nm in the blue, 16 nm in the green and 19 nm in the red spectral region on a single chip respectively. Tuning behavior can be described with the Bragg-equation and the measured thickness profile. The laser threshold is low enough that inexpensive laser diodes can be used as pump sources. Weimann, J. Wang, and P. Hinze, "Laser threshold reduction in an all-spiro guest-host system," Appl. Phys. Lett. 85(10), 1659-1661 (2004

Laser light excitation of fluorescent markers offers highly sensitive and specific analysis for bio-medical or chemical analysis. To profit from these advantages for applications in the field or at the point-ofcare, a plastic lab-on-a-chip with integrated organic semiconductor lasers is presented here. First order distributed feedback lasers based on the organic semiconductor tris(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum (Alq 3 ) doped with the laser dye 4-dicyanomethylene-2-methyl-6-(p-dimethylaminostyril)-4H-pyrane (DCM), deep ultraviolet induced waveguides, and a nanostructured microfluidic channel are integrated into a poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) substrate. A simple and parallel fabrication process is used comprising thermal imprint, DUV exposure, evaporation of the laser material, and sealing by thermal bonding. The excitation of two fluorescent marker model systems including labeled antibodies with light emitted by integrated lasers is demonstrated.

Organic semiconductor lasers are of particular interest as tunable visible laser light sources. For bringing those to market encapsulation is needed to ensure practicable lifetimes. Additionally, fabrication technologies suitable for mass production must be used. We introduce allpolymer chips comprising encapsulated distributed feedback organic semiconductor lasers. Several chips are fabricated in parallel by thermal nanoimprint of the feedback grating on 4 wafer scale out of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and cyclic olefin copolymer (COC). The lasers consisting of the organic semiconductor tris(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum (Alq 3 ) doped with the laser dye 4-dicyanomethylene-2-methyl-6-(pdimethylaminostyril)-4H-pyrane (DCM) are hermetically sealed by thermally bonding a polymer lid. The organic thin film is placed in a basin within the substrate and is not in direct contact to the lid. Thus, the spectral properties of the lasers are unmodified in comparison to unencapsulated lasers. Grating periods of 378 nm to 428 nm in steps of 10 nm result in lasing at wavelengths of 622 nm to 685 nm. The operational lifetime of the lasers expressed in number of pulses is improved 11-fold (PMMA) and 3-fold (COC) in comparison to unencapsulated PMMA devices.

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