International Research Fellowship Program: Organic Microlasers for Photonics

Wright, Daniel, Mountain View CA

Investigators

Abstract

0202631 Wright The International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. This award will support a twelve month research fellowship by Dr. Daniel Wright to work with Dr. Joseph Zyss at the L'Ecole Normale Superieure de Cachan in Cachon, France. This project will be co-supported by the Math and Physical Sciences Directorate's Office of Multidisciplinary Activities. This project will advance research on organic microlasers in the lab of Dr. Joseph Zyss at the L'Ecole Normale Superieure de Cachan. The research will be directed in two areas, one focusing on the laser gain media and the other on the laser feedback structure. The work on the gain media will concentrate on the development of organic microlasers that operate in the near infrared portion of the spectrum at the industrially useful wavelengths of 1.3 and 1.55 um since there are currently no organic laser sources that work at these wavelengths. The project will entail the examination of new polymers doped with rare-earth ions that could provide efficient laser light in this spectra region. The PI's work on microlaser cavity design will focus on improving the directionality of the emissions of these devices by fabricating organic microdisk structures with engineered defects and also exploring other planar cavity shapes such as ovals, mulipoles, and polygons. He will subsequently investigate the coupling of these planar cavities to optical fibers, waveguides, and other microdisks. In order to characterize and improve the feedback structures, he will perform experiments in which the emitted light of each new cavity will be collected such that the angular dependence and spectral properties of the light can be examined. The results of these experiments will be compared to mathematical models of the systems under study. Dr. Zyss is one of the leading researchers in organic non-linear optics and photonics.