6533b833fe1ef96bd129bfc7

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Efficient Optical Amplification in a Sandwich-Type Active-Passive Polymer Waveguide Containing Perylenediimides

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description

Polymer waveguides doped with luminescent materials serve as a suitable flexible platform for active elements (lasers and amplifiers) in on-chip optical circuits. However, at present, the best parameters (lowest thresholds) achieved with these devices are obtained with the use of the stripe excitation technique in the framework of which external illumination of an active material along the whole length of the waveguide is realized that is not convenient for the waveguide on-chip integration and requires high peak energies due to the large excitation area. In the present work, an elegant method is proposed to overcome this obstacle and provide efficient active material pumping along the whole waveguide length with use of on-chip integration compatible edge-type excitation light injection. This novel type of planar active-passive polymer waveguides includes a thin (50–100 nm) active layer of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), which is heavily doped with highly luminescent perylenediimide (PDI) molecules, san...