Degradation recoverable DFB lasers based on P597:PDMS/PTFEMA

Organic materials are promising candidates for integrated optical waveguide because of their ease of fabrication, flexibility, compatibility with many kinds of photonic and electronic functional molecules. The solid-state dye laser active media such as dye doped glasses or polymers have been proposed by many research groups. However, materials with low optical loss in the visible and near-infrared regions have been combined with fluorescent dyes, and these indicate short durability. Recently, we found that PDMS (Polydimethylsiloxane) is a long durability solid-state dye laser host matrix. The reason is the possible circulation of dye molecules in PDMS by its nano structure. PDMS-state dye laser media have both shape maintainability and dye circulation in solid-state and liquid-state media, respectively. Moreover, it is easy to fabricate PDMS waveguides by the pen-drawing technique [1]. Previously, some researches on waveguides using PDMS have been investigated [2]. In this study, we demonstrated a solid-state polymer laser with self dye-circulatory function by PDMS waveguide. After pumping a DFB laser, an intensity of DFB laser output was recovered to 100% by dye diffusion in PDMS at room temperature. The laser was also oscillated with the single mode using spin-coated DFB layer on PDMS with tunability.