Paper
12 September 2013 Liquid crystal lasers
J. Schmidtke
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
Photonic band edge lasers based on cholesteric liquid crystals (CLCs) have attracted considerable interest as selfassembled, tunable, microscopic, coherent light sources. We discuss several ways to improve the lasing performance: lasing threshold and slope efficiency can both be improved by stabilizing the liquid crystalline order to suppress heatinduced distortions during the pumping process. This can be achieved either by photo-crosslinking reactive mesogens, or by applying an electric field along the helical axis of a CLC with negative dielectric anisotropy. Defect mode lasing with exceptionally low lasing threshold can be easily achieved with polymeric systems by insertion of a phase jump in the chiral molecular order. Finally, electrical fine tuning of the laser emission by application of an in-plane electric field electric field will be discussed.
© (2013) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
J. Schmidtke "Liquid crystal lasers", Proc. SPIE 8828, Liquid Crystals XVII, 882806 (12 September 2013); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2022345
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KEYWORDS
Dielectrics

Anisotropy

Polymers

Liquid crystals

Photonic crystals

Liquid crystal lasers

Tunable lasers

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