Method and apparatus for super radiant laser action in half wavelength thick organic semiconductor microcavities

The disclosed device is a solid state organic semiconductor VCSEL in which the microcavity is composed of metal and dielectric mirrors and the gain layer is only λ/2n thick. The gain layer comprises a thermally evaporated 156.7 nm thick film of the laser dye DCM doped (2.5% v/v) into an Alq3 host matrix. The microcavity consists of 2 mirrors, a dielectric Bragg reflector (DBR) sputter-coated onto a quartz substrate as the mirror through which the organic gain layer is optically excited and laser emission is collected and a silver mirror that is thermally evaporated on top of the Alq3:DCM film. The device exhibits laser action from the DCM both when the DCM molecules are excited directly at 535 nm and via Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) from the Alq3 (excited at 404 nm) with laser thresholds of 4.9 μJ/cm2 and 14.2 μJ/cm2 respectively.