An Efficient All-Plastic Organic Waveguide Solid-State Laser Devices with Distributed Bragg Reflector

Organic dye or polymer waveguide laser is a promising next-generation solid-state laser device, because they are not only easily and inexpensively fabricated as laser sources, but also have high potential for bio-sensing for hazardous materials and environments. The active layer and the effective resonator consist of all-organic materials, which can be processed by solution-casting or spin-coating. Here, laser performances of all-plastic organic waveguide solid-state laser devices are reported with Bragg mirror and micro-cavity, both being fabricated by the relief gratings. Waveguide consists of a high quantum yield organic dye of pyrromethene 567 as a lasing emitter and a cellulose acetate (CA) film as a waveguide matrix. The distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) region and the distributed feedback (DFB) resonator as a micro-cavity are fabricated in the waveguide devices using a negative photoresist SU-8 by an interference technique. The performances of lasing threshold and slope efficiency for both organic waveguide devices with DBR region and DFB resonator are evaluated. The slope efficiency of 2.01% and the lasing threshold of 45 mu J cm(-2) are measured for the waveguide device with DBR region, whereas the waveguide device with DFB resonator gives the slope efficiency of 0.72% and the lasing threshold of 140 mu J cm(-2).