These materials’ extraordinary optical, semiconducting, and mechanical qualities have increased interest in plastic electronics and photonics over the past few decades. For designing laser geometries of almost any form, plastic electronics based on conjugated polymers combine the advantages of cost-effective processability compatible with large-area deposition. With rigid inorganic semiconductor materials, this is not feasible. To allow optically pumped conjugated polymer lasers with emission spanning the visible and near-infrared spectrum, these highly luminescent materials have been incorporated into various resonator geometries, such as photonic crystals or distributed feedback (DBF) cavities.
Researchers have developed brand-new, translucent, all-polymer DBF lasers. The DBF lasers use periodic wavelength-scale nanostructures to backscatter light for constructive interference. Their research used extremely luminescent conjugated polymers to cover nanoimprinted DBF structures on thermoplastic (cellulose diacetate) films. The lasers‘ homogeneous emission’s blue, green, and red hues are displayed in this manner. The emission wavelength can also be changed by bending the DBF bendable cavities.
There are many benefits to using thermoplastic media like cellulose diacetate: Even after annealing, it is affordable, accessible, adaptable, and transparent. Additionally, cellulose diacetate is made from renewable tree pulp, is biodegradable, and compatible with several organic solvents. By measuring the lasing threshold values after bending, researchers have shown the resilience of their structures and confirmed that the optical and structural characteristics of the active layer do not degrade.
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