All-polymer organic semiconductor laser chips: Parallel fabrication and encapsulation

Christoph Vannahme,Uli Lemmer,Timo Mappes,Anders Kristensen,Alexander Kolew,Sönke Klinkhammer,Mads Brøkner Christiansen

doi:10.1364/oe.18.024881

Abstract

Organic semiconductor lasers are of particular interest as tunable visible laser light sources. For bringing those to market encapsulation is needed to ensure practicable lifetimes. Additionally, fabrication technologies suitable for mass production must be used. We introduce all-polymer chips comprising encapsulated distributed feedback organic semiconductor lasers. Several chips are fabricated in parallel by thermal nanoimprint of the feedback grating on 4″ wafer scale out of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and cyclic olefin copolymer (COC). The lasers consisting of the organic semiconductor tris(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum (Alq3) doped with the laser dye 4-dicyanomethylene-2-methyl-6-(p-dimethylaminostyril)-4H-pyrane (DCM) are hermetically sealed by thermally bonding a polymer lid. The organic thin film is placed in a basin within the substrate and is not in direct contact to the lid. Thus, the spectral properties of the lasers are unmodified in comparison to unencapsulated lasers. Grating periods of 378 nm to 428 nm in steps of 10 nm result in lasing at wavelengths of 622 nm to 685 nm. The operational lifetime of the lasers expressed in number of pulses is improved 11-fold (PMMA) and 3-fold (COC) in comparison to unencapsulated PMMA devices.

Highlights

Organic semiconductor distributed feedback (DFB) lasers [1] are of particular interest as tunable emitters of laser light in the visible wavelength range [2]
Organic semiconductor lasers are of particular interest as tunable visible laser light sources
We introduce allpolymer chips comprising encapsulated distributed feedback organic semiconductor lasers

Summary

Introduction

Organic semiconductor distributed feedback (DFB) lasers [1] are of particular interest as tunable emitters of laser light in the visible wavelength range [2]. They are optically pumped, usually by ultraviolet lasers. Low threshold organic semiconductor lasers can be pumped with laser diodes [3,4,5,6] and light-emitting diodes [7]. Optically pumped organic semiconductor lasers have sufficient output power for spectroscopic analysis [9,10,11]. The use in photonic lab-on-a-chip systems will allow for point of care analysis with laser light [12, 13]

Methods

Results

Conclusion