Flexible distributed feedback lasers based on nanoimprinted cellulose diacetate with efficient multiple wavelength lasing

Abstract

Multi-colored polymer lasers Highly luminescent polymers can work as lasers when incorporated with suitable cavities and now the nano-imprinting makes the fabrication much cheaper and more scalable. An international team led by Prof Juan Cabanillas-Gonzalez from Madrid Institute for Advanced Studies in Nanoscience, Spain demonstrates transparent all-polymer distributed feedback (DFB) lasers in blue, green, yellow and red. The most important step is to make sub-wavelength periodic gratings on the flexible and highly transparent cellulose diacetate substrates by thermal nano-imprinting with high fidelity to maximize the constructive interference effect. As a result, these lasers show narrow linewidths below 1 nm at low power thresholds of several μJ cm^−2, which is comparable to conventional approaches. This large area nano-imprinting method is scalable and adaptable and it enables stackable multi-colored laser emission.