Recent advances in solid‐state organic lasers

Abstract

Organic solid-state lasers are reviewed, with a special emphasis on works published during the last decade. Referring originally to dyes in solid-state polymeric matrices, organic lasers also include the rich family of organic semiconductors, paced by the rapid development of organic light emitting diodes. Organic lasers are broadly tunable coherent sources are potentially compact, convenient and manufactured at low-costs. In this review, we describe the basic photophysics of the materials used as gain media in organic lasers with a specific look at the distinctive feature of dyes and semiconductors. We also outline the laser architectures used in state-of-the-art organic lasers and the performances of these devices with regard to output power, lifetime, and beam quality. A survey of the recent trends in the field is given, highlighting the latest developments in terms of wavelength coverage, wavelength agility, efficiency and compactness, or towards integrated low-cost sources, with a special focus on the great challenges remaining for achieving direct electrical pumping. Finally, we discuss the very recent demonstration of new kinds of organic lasers based on polaritons or surface plasmons, which open new and very promising routes in the field of organic nanophotonics.

Suppression of roll-off characteristics of organic light-emitting diodes by narrowing current injection/transport area to 50 nm

“…Equation (8) reveals that J 0 increases with z. Based on this equation, we discuss the effect of exciton diffusion on the roll-off characteristics depending on X in the linear devices.…”

“…Exciton-polaron annihilation is the most critical issue to overcome because all polarons have a broad absorption spectrum. [8][9][10][11] In our previous study, we demonstrated high current injection of over 1000 A cm À2 without device breakdown into OLEDs with an unusual device configuration of a small active area (200 Â 200 nm) on a high thermally conductive substrate by application of a short pulse voltage of less than 1 ls. 12,13 However, very serious efficiency roll-off was observed at such high current density.…”

“…[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] To avoid these exciton annihilation processes at high current density, particularly exciton formation at organic/organic heterointerfaces that tend to allow accumulation of charge carriers, it has been recognized that expansion of the carrier recombination width is a useful method. 20,21 In this study, we demonstrate suppression of roll-off by introducing the idea of spatial separation of the "charge carrier flow, recombination, and exciton formation area" and the "exciton decay area" in fluorescence based OLEDs.…”

Distributed feedback lasers based on perylenediimide dyes for label-free refractive index sensing

“…The second-order solid-state organic distributed feedback laser (DFB) [14,15] represents the next step from passive to active optical refractometric sensors, because the structure incorporates its own source of optical gain and feedback, so that it allows achieving narrow bandwidth output through the process of stimulated emission [16,17]. Although the linewidths achievable by DFB sensors are generally not narrower than those obtained with some of the sensors mentioned, they are simultaneously capable of high sensitivity and a high degree of resolution.…”

Broadly tunable (440–670 nm) solid-state organic laser with disposable capsules

“…Tunable visible sources based on nonlinear fibers and frequency conversion recently appeared on the marketplace but are available at a cost comparable with that of dye lasers or OPOs. In pulsed regime, organic solid-state lasers (OSSLs) 10,11 are then very appealing devices which combine the advantages of dye lasers with those of conventional solid-state lasers, with a "low-cost" advantage. Two types of OSSLs can be distinguished: lasers with bulk (≈ cm) dye-doped polymer chips, and thin-film based lasers (which include organic semiconductor lasers 11 ).…”