How doping a cholesteric liquid crystal with polymeric dye improves an order parameter and makes possible low threshold lasing.
- Resource Type
- Article
- Authors
- Araoka, Fumito; Shin, Ki-Chul; Takanishi, Yoichi; Ishikawa, Ken; Takezoe, Hideo; Zhu, Zhengguo; Swager, Timothy M.
- Source
- Journal of Applied Physics. 7/1/2003, Vol. 94 Issue 1, p279. 5p. 1 Black and White Photograph, 5 Diagrams, 5 Graphs.
- Subject
- *LIQUID crystals
*PHOTONICS
*CRYSTALS
- Language
- ISSN
- 0021-8979
Lasing conditions in a dye-doped cholesteric liquid crystal (ChLC) have been studied in view of optical modes for the light propagating in ChLCs using a polymeric dye with the transition dipole moment parallel to the local director of the ChLC host. We found that lasing always occurs at the lower-energy edge of the photonic gap. This is because that the optical eigen mode at the lower-energy gap is linearly polarized parallel to the director, while it is perpendicular at the higher-energy gap. Because of this well-defined lasing condition, low-threshold lasing was successfully achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]