Influence of the excitation area on the thresholds of organic second-order distributed feedback lasers

Abstract

It is shown that the optical pump power (or energy) density thresholds required to obtain lasing from organic second-order distributed feedback lasers, increase when the excitation area (A) is smaller than a certain value (Acrit). So, in order to obtain the minimum possible thresholds and to ensure that they constitute adequate quantities for comparison purposes, the condition A > Acrit should be fulfilled. Results also indicate that when A < Acrit (Acrit ∼ 0.1 mm2 for the devices studied here), the operational device lifetime, which depends mainly on the pump power (or energy) density, becomes drastically reduced.