Micro-cavity laser of dye molecules loaded in AlPO4-5 crystals

Micro-cavity laser has attracted extensive attentions due to its potential applications in high-speed integrated opto-electronic device and system. In micro-cavity, spontaneous emission process is enhanced or prohibited, and lasing can occur without a visible threshold. In the past, micro-cavity was realized with semiconductors such as microdisks or vertical cavity surface emitting lasers, with organic dyes embedded in planar resonators as Langmuir-Blodgett films or in spheres, and with gain medium in photonic crystals. In this article, we report a new type of micro-cavity laser based on organic dye molecules incorporated in the channels of AlPO4-5 single crystals by physical diffusion method. The optical measurements reveal that the dipole transition moment of the enclosed organic dye molecules is highly oriented in the channels. Due to size confinement of the AlPO4-5 channels, there is a structure deformation of the dye molecules, which leads to a large blue shift in the absorption spectra for the dye/AlPO4-5 crystal. The micro-sized hexagonal AlPO4-5 single crystal serves as a good natural micro-cavity for the lasing action of the adsorbed dye molecules. The micro-cavity mode of the lasing action is demonstrated.