Mirrorless Lasing from Mesostructured Waveguides Patterned by Soft Lithography

Abstract

Mesostructured silica waveguide arrays were fabricated with a combination of acidic sol-gel block copolymer templating chemistry and soft lithography. Waveguiding was enabled by the use of a low–refractive index (1.15) mesoporous silica thin film support. When the mesostructure was doped with the laser dye rhodamine 6G, amplified spontaneous emission was observed with a low pumping threshold of 10 kilowatts per square centimeter, attributed to the mesostructure's ability to prevent aggregation of the dye molecules even at relatively high loadings within the organized high–surface area mesochannels of the waveguides. These highly processible, self-assembling mesostructured host media and claddings may have potential for the fabrication of integrated optical circuits.