title: Mirrorless lasing from mesostructured waveguides patterned by soft lithography
abstract: Mesostructured silica waveguide arrays were fabricated with a combination of acidic sol-gel block copolymer templating chemistry and soft lithography. Waveguiding was enabled by the use of a low-refractive index (1.15) mesoporous silica thin film support. When the mesostructure was doped with the laser dye rhodamine 6G, amplified spontaneous emission was observed with a low pumping threshold of 10 kilowatts per square centimeter, attributed to the mesostructure's ability to prevent aggregation of the dye molecules even at relatively high loadings within the organized high-surface area mesochannels of the waveguides. These highly processible, self-assembling mesostructured host media and claddings may have potential for the fabrication of integrated optical circuits.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Department of Chemical Engineering, Department of Materials, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA. Department of Chemistry, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wirnsberger
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Cordero
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: McGehee
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Scott
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Whitesides
authors.initials: BF
authors.lastname: Chmelka
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Buratto
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Stucky