Organic semiconductors are an attractive class of semiconductor combining simple fabrication with the scope to tune properties by changing the structure. Their high oscillator strength and exciton binding energy make them attractive candidates for strong light-matter coupling, and polariton lasers operating at room temperature have been demonstrated. Many of these lasers operate at high thresholds (>100 uJ/cm2). We have explored fluorene oligomers and polymers as a route to much lower thresholds. We demonstrate low-threshold (<20 µJ/cm2) polariton lasing in a range of fluorene-based materials. Building on these results we have explored 1D and 2D lattices of polariton condensates. In the 2D case we observe a polariton condensate 2-3 µm from the pump spots, showing that polaritons can travel much further than excitons in organic semiconductors.
Organic semiconductors have the potential to be attractive laser materials and many optically pumped lasers have been demonstrated. However, electrical excitation is very challenging because of the low mobility of the materials, together with losses to triplets, polarons and contacts. We will discuss and compare approaches to electrically driven lasing, including the possibility of indirect pumping, and very promising results.
Organic semiconductors have received increasing interest in sensing the explosive molecules emitted from landmines and improvised explosives devices (IEDs), especially when used as fluorescent sensors which are highly sensitive, easy to fabricate, and relatively cheaper when compared to other sensing technologies. Sensitivity down to ppb can be observed as quenching of photoexcited excitons in the fluorescent films, due to electron transfer from the excitons in the film to the nitroaromatic explosives molecules. However, for many organic fluorescent sensors, the quenching is irreversible or exhibits extremely slow reversibility due to strong binding interactions between the sensors and analytes, which imposes a limitation in terms of reusability. Here we present a study of the control of a fluorescent sensor’s temperature to overcome the binding interaction, and make the quenching reversible. Specifically, we study the thermal release of 2,4-DNT from the commercial fluorescent polymer, Super Yellow. Thermal cycling of the sensors results in recovery of fluorescence making them reusable. Interestingly, the release of 2,4-DNT occurs at a specific temperature which can be explored to discriminate which type of analytes are being released from the sensors. To optimise the sensors, blends of SY with Poly carbazole (PVK) were fabricated, and the thermal release of various nitroaromatic analytes were characterised. This method can be applied to other organic fluorescent sensors in a route to make them reusable, and give a selective response based on the temperature at which analytes are released.
Strong light-matter interactions in optical microcavities can form exciton-polaritons – a superposition state of photons and excitons. Above a threshold excitation density, these bosonic quasiparticles can condense into the lowest energy state as a polariton laser. This does not require population inversion and so offers potential to generate coherent light with very low threshold.
Organic semiconductors are attractive materials for microcavity polaritons due to their high exciton binding energy and oscillator strength. It is well reported in inorganic semiconductor microcavities that the threshold for polariton lasing is lower than that for conventional photon lasing. However, polariton lasing thresholds in organic semiconductors are relatively higher than organic photon lasers.
Here, we present a study of strong coupling and polariton lasing in highly soluble fluorene-carbazolylstyryl materials, which exhibit high absorption coefficients, PLQY and radiative rates. We observe polariton lasing under 100 fs optical pumping, with absorbed pump threshold densities as low as 2.2 µJ/cm2. This is the lowest threshold reported to date for polariton lasing in organic microcavities, and comparable to state-of-the-art organic cavity surface-emitting lasers. A step-like blueshift at polariton lasing threshold indicates the interplay between different exciton depletion channels.
Our study also provides insight to the design principles for an optimal polariton lasing threshold. Through a comparison of the photophysics and polariton laser performance of these materials with those of other reported polariton lasers, we identify key materials and cavity properties required for further development of low threshold organic polariton lasers.
OLEDs and other organic optoelectronic devices combine many attractive features. However, they are generally thought to be slow, limiting their range of possible applications. We demonstrate that by careful study of the factors limiting their bandwidth, and appropriate design in terms of device size, operating field and emitter lifetime exceptionally fast OLEDs can be made with modulation bandwidths up to 245 MHz, opening up new potential applications in communications, spectroscopy, sensing and ranging. In particular, we demonstrate visible light communication in which a single OLED transmits data at a rate exceeding 1 gigabit per second.
Optofluidic biolasers are an emerging tool for bio-sensing and diagnostics. However, in order to facilitate waveguiding, the most common optofluidic distributed feedback (DFB) laser design relies on high-refractive index gain materials which are usually not biocompatible. We report the realization and characterization of evanescently pumped optofluidic DFB lasers with biocompatible aqueous gain fluids. Record low pump thresholds were achieved by optimizing the mode shape in the waveguide structure. Measuring the photonic band dispersion permits to sense the refractive index of the fluidic gain material. Different biological gain materials were studied on our devices.
Given the imminent radio frequency spectrum crunch, Visible Light Communication (VLC) is being proposed as an alternative wireless technology allowing for scalable connectivity to potentially millions of mobile and Internet-of- Things (IoT) devices. A VLC system uses a photo-detector (PD) receiver that converts the optically modulated light from a light source into a modulated electrical signal. The corresponding receiver electrical bandwidth is typically inversely proportional to the PD active area. Consequently, to construct a high-speed VLC link, the PD active area is often substantially reduced and an optical concentrator is used to enhance the receiver collection area. However, to achieve high concentrating factor, the link field-of-view (FOV) needs to be narrow due to the étendue conservation in linear passive optical systems. This paper studies a Fluorescent Concentrator (FC) that breaks this étendue conservation. The FC is not only based on reflective and refractive principles but also makes use of fluorescence process. A comparison between the FC and conventional optical concentrators, namely Compound Parabolic Concentrator (CPC) is also investigated. The trade-off between received signal strength and incoming link angle is demonstrated over 60° coverage. Experimental results show that performance degradation as the link angle increases using FC-based receivers is significantly lower than for conventional CPC.
The emission pattern of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) is usually close to Lambertian. This paper explores the
factors controlling the angular dependence of the emission from OLEDs. In particular it considers the question of how
far from Lambertian can the emission of an OLED be? We have examined how wavelength-scale microstructure can
modify the pattern of light emission from OLEDs. We demonstrate OLEDs in which emission is strongly directed
towards, or away from, the forward direction. We consider the relative importance of scattering of waveguide modes,
surface plasmons and microcavity effects in the strongly modified emission patterns which we observe.
We report the demonstration of low threshold organic lasers whose nanostructured resonators are fabricated by UV
nanoimprint lithography. We compare the nanoimprinted resonators with their master stamp nanostructures, and
demonstrate lasers based on the conjugated polymer poly(2,5-Bis(2',5'-Bis(2"-ethylhexlyoxy))-p-phenylenevinylene),
with thresholds of ~1 kW/cm2 and below, which brings them into the regime where they can be optically pumped by a
pulsed light-emitting diode.
Explosive sensing is a promising, emerging application for conjugated polymers. One exciting potential area of
application is to clear landmines left after military actions. In this work, we demonstrate three ways to detect 10 partsper-
billion of the model explosive, 1,4-dinitrobenzene (DNB): by monitoring fluorescence intensity, by measuring
fluorescence lifetime, and by distributed-feedback (DFB) laser emission. A quenching of the fluorescence is observed
upon DNB exposure. The reversibility of the quenching process has been demonstrated by purging with nitrogen.
Semiconducting polymers are very promising optoelectronic materials enabling the simple fabrication of devices such as
light-emitting diodes, lasers and solar cells. However, the development of polymer lasers has been hampered by the low
charge mobility of these materials preventing electrically driven lasers. We find that this problem can be overcome by
taking advantage of the complementary properties of inorganic semiconductors. We show that by separating the charge
transporting and lasing regions in a structure combining an indium gallium nitride light-emitting diode with a
semiconducting polymer distributed feedback laser, an electrically pumped hybrid polymer laser can be made. This
provides a new route to simple, convenient, compact and low-cost visible lasers with the potential for applications in
security, sensing, spectroscopy, and medical diagnostics.
Silicon photonics is a rapidly progressing field, where silicon structures are developed
for optical information generation, transmission and processing. Although substantial
progress has been achieved in the fields of transmission and processing,
significant challenges remain to be addressed in generating light on silicon. In this
paper we show that by integrating a silicon resonator with organic semiconductors,
light generation on silicon chips can be achieved in the visible spectral range. Unlike
similar attempts in the telecommunication spectral region, the signal from our device
can be directly measured by silicon photodetectors.
In this paper we describe the design and performance of diode-pumped organic lasers based on the poly(paraphenylene-vinylene)
derivative MEH-PPV. To achieve the very low oscillation thresholds required for direct diode pumping, we
use a novel surface-emitting distributed Bragg reflector cavity. We describe the operating characteristics of such devices
when operating below and above threshold, and show that they can combine low threshold operation with the favourable
spectral and emission characteristics of DFB lasers. We also describe and characterize an energy transfer gain medium
using coumarin 102 laser dye as the host, which has been optimized for efficient harvesting of the diode laser excitation.
Semiconducting polymers are a rapidly advancing class of optoelectronic materials. They give efficient light emission
under optical or electrical stimulation, and offer promise as compact, lightweight and simple to fabricate lasers. The
development of such active polymer components complements developments in polymer fibre and planar lightwave
circuits opening new directions in polymer integrated optics. In this article progress towards making compact practical
polymer lasers is described. The potential for polymer lasers to operate in the space radiation environment is also discussed.
Semiconducting conjugated polymers have recently attracted significant interest as amplifying media for solid-state lasers due to their functional photo-physical properties and simple fabrication. Distributed feedback (DFB) cavities are proving to be the most attractive for polymer lasers, since they can combine the properties of transverse optical pumping, low threshold and practical output beams. To date, in most polymer DFB lasers the feedback is provided by second order diffraction. This has the advantage of surface emission, though it also imposes extensive scattering losses. In this work, we present the use of alternative structures that attempt to reduce the threshold of polymer DFB lasers, and also achieve dual wavelength operation. The former was addressed with cavities formed by alternative symmetries of the Brillouin zone of a square lattice. Using the diagonal ΓM symmetry first order feedback was attained. The threshold energy was thus reduced by almost an order of magnitude as compared with the more commonly used ΓX symmetry of second order square gratings. Finally, we show that two lasing wavelengths may be set independently in a semiconducting polymer laser by using a doubly periodic (i.e. Moiré) DFB grating.
In this paper we report studies of gain in organic semiconductors, both in solution and the solid-state. OC1C10-PPV and F8BT solution amplifiers yielded gain of up to 40 dB and on average 30 dB across the spectral range 530-640 nm. We also present a conjugated polymer solid-state amplifier structure, which delivered amplification of 18 dB in a 300 μm channel length. The material used in the solid state amplifier was Dow RedF which had its high gain and low loss properties optimized by blending with F8BT.
SU8 is a commercial negative photoresist, which is highly transparent in the visible and near-infrared and extremely resistant to many organic solvents. Here we show that sub-micron period diffraction gratings, and 2D photonic crystal structures, can be readily formed holographically over extended areas. By coating the SU8 layer with a suitable gain medium, such structures may be used as feedback and output-coupling gratings for organic waveguide lasers. Thin films of SU8, were initially deposited by spin casting onto glass substrates. These films were then mounted in one arm of a Lloyd's mirror interferometer and exposed with the expanded beam of a HeCd laser, operating at 325 nm. Subsequent baking and developing steps lead to both volume gratings with index contrast of 0.014, and surface gratings with corrugation depths of up to 140 nm. By varying the incidence angle of the HeCd laser beam to the SU8 film we have tuned the microstructure period from 500 nm down to 200 nm. Using multiple exposures, both doubly-periodic diffraction gratings and square-lattice crystal structures have been produced.
Charge injection in light-emitting diode (LED) structures is commonly achieved using metallic contacts, but the losses associated with metals at optical wavelengths are perceived to be one obstacle to the development of an electrically pumped polymer laser. We show that these losses might not be insurmountable by demonstrating the operation of a distributed-feedback polymer laser fabricated upon a corrugated silver substrate, using the material poly[2-methoxy-5-(2'-ethylhexyloxy)-1,4-phenylene vinylene] (MEH-PPV) as the gain medium. The lasing threshold of this device was increased by a factor of ~150 with respect to that measured for a similar device fabricated without the metal under comparable pumping conditions. The emission characteristics of the device were found to correlate well with the measured photonic band structure, enabling us to explain the effect of the microstructure on device operation.
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