Organic semiconductor lasers

V.G. Kozlov, V. Bulovic. P.E. Burrows, S.R. Forrest. Laser action in organic semiconductor waveguide and douhle-heicroslruciure devices. Nature 1997,. 189, 362. 

G. Wicks, Organic lasers, Compound Semiconductors (January/February 1997) 42. 

Y.G. Kozlov, G. Parthasarthy, P.E. Burrows, S.R. Forest, Y. You, M.E. Thompson, Optically pumped blue organic semiconductor lasers, Appl. Phys. Lett. 72 (1998) 144-146. 

One possibility to realize low-threshold organic solid-state lasers is to utilize guest-host systems. In the following this is demonstrated for the example of DCM- and DCM2-doped organic semiconductors. As host materials the electron-transport material Alq3 and the hole-conducting materials NPD and CBP are used. 

Fig. 12.13 The inset of (a) shows the scheme of a very compact all solid-state laser using the organic semiconductor film as active medium. The pump source is a commercially available diode-pumped, Q-switched, frequency-tripled Nd YAG-microchip laser (Uniphase NanoUV-355). The organic semiconductor laser can be placed directly in front of the pump laser. Thus the total length of this very compact solid-state...

With regard to the realization of an organic diode laser two issues are worth mentioning Organic semiconductor lasers work in the presence of electric contacts and, what is even more encouraging, the laser threshold is not substantially increased. Nevertheless, stimulated emission under electrical excitation has still to be demonstrated. 

There are a number of applications where it might be favorable to use optically driven organic semiconductor lasers without the need for additional processing steps. Easy to fabricate and thus cost-effective disposable devices are highly attractive, tunable laser sources for single-use spectroscopy applications, e.g. in medicine and biotechnology. 

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