Wavelength-Switchable Lasing From a Polymer Single Chip Device Codoped With Organic Dyes

Abstract

We demonstrated a wavelength-switchable lasing operation in a single-chip polymer waveguide device. This device has a single active layer codoped with two organic dyes, Stilbene 420 and Rhodamine B, and is equipped with a distributed-feedback resonator by a single-pitched grating. Since there is no significant spectral overlap between the emission band of Stilbene 420 and the absorption band of Rhodamine B, both of these dyes could be simultaneously activated as the optical gain media in the active layer. Under the optical pumping, bistable blue and red lasing emissions were obtained, which were attributed to the third-order distributed-feedback oscillation for the Stilbene 420 emission and the second-order distributedfeedback oscillation for the Rhodamine B emission, respectively. These lasing modes could be easily switched by changing the pumping wavelength.

Wavelength Tunability of Plastic Waveguide Laser With Asymmetric Distributed Bragg Reflectors

“…The lasing wavelength was varied in accordance with a Vernier effect of the resonant wavelength, which was sensitive to the variation in the effective index. Generally the organic materials have wide gain bands in contrast to the inorganic materials [17], [35], [36]. Therefore, the solidstate organic laser with the asymmetric DBRs has promise as a compact and widely tunable laser light source because a large wavelength shift can be expected with a very small perturbation.…”