Abstract

Organic Solid State Lasers (OSSLs) based on thin films of organic semiconductors or dye-doped polymers have appeared as powerful tools in spectroscopy and sensing and are considered low-cost alternatives for compact and broadly tunable coherent sources covering the whole visible spectrum [1]. Research in OSSLs is both application-oriented and fundamental, as electrical pumping of organic semiconductors and true continuous-wave operation have not yet been demonstrated [2]. In all cases, this leads OSSLs to evolve from a laboratory use, with low repetition rate (< kHz) and low pump pulse durations (<10 ns), to a regime where average pump power densities are brought up to the kW/cm² range. This now raises the question of thermal effects in those lasers.

© 2015 IEEE