Zeolite dye laser is world`s smallest
German researchers have developed a new class of solid-state optical-wavelength-scale lasers based on nanoporous molecular sieve host-guest systems that the researchers believe are about three times smaller than competing devices. Fabrication involves inserting organic-dye guest molecules of 1-ethyl-4-(P-dimethylaminophenyl)-1,3-butadienyl)-pyridinium Perchlorat into the 0.73-nm-wide channel pores of a zeolite AlPO4-5 host. The zeolitic microcrystal compounds were then hydrothermally synthesized.
Although the research team from Darmstadt University of Technology (Darmstadt, Germany), the University of Frankfurt (Frankfurt, GA), and IMM (Mainz, Germany) has not yet systematically investigated size-dependent effects, it has demonstrated emission from a laser with a resonator size in the regime where size-dependent effects such as reduction of laser threshold begin to play a role. Preliminary results show the dye molecules to be uniformly aligned in the zeolitic solid-state host. The researchers also obtained single-mode laser emission at 687 nm from a whispering-gallery mode oscillating in an 8-µm-diameter monolithic microresonator, in which the field is confined by total internal reflection at the natural hexagonal boundaries inside the zeolitic microcrystals. Contact: Franco Laeri at [email protected].