Abstract

Many efforts are currently made to produce organic devices for integrated optics. One of the technological solution used is patterning and micro-structuring. Reversible patterning of photo-induced surface-relief gratings was obtained with an interference pattern into a azo-dye aromatic polymer¹. Our work is to use the patterning of organic devices in order to control the stimulated emission of luminescent polymer thin film. Distributed Feedback (DFB) laser devices have been exhaustively investigated by the semi-conductor laser community. However, polymer materials exhibit extensive properties of emission and easy processing facilities. We present spectral properties of dynamical DFB thin film doped dye lasers. Optical feedback is provided by a external laser induced modulation of the complex refractive index of the active medium obtained by a Lloyd interferometer². Spectral tunability of the wavelength of emission was achieved by varying the grating periodicity all over the gain spectrum for several polymer/dye/substrate combinations. Guiding properties have been studied and multi-modal spectra were obtained and explained using the dispersion equations of a planar waveguide.

© 2001 EPS