Thermo-spectral study of all-polymer multilayer lasers

Abstract

We investigate the temperature dependence of the emission wavelength and reflection band of polymer Distributed Bragg Reflector (DBR) and defect Distributed FeedBack (DFB) lasers fabricated using a coextrusion melt-process. We show the measured spectral shifts are a direct consequence of the optical path modifications associated with layer expansion and thermo-optic coefficients. By varying the choice of polymer bilayers and sandwiching the DBR laser films between glass coverslips, we fabricated DBR lasers that are either readily tunable up to 0.36nm/°C or made thermally stable at 0.035nm/°C.