Fiber coupled cholesteric liquid crystal laser

Lasing in cholesteric liquid crystals is an exciting new phenomenon. Cholesteric liquid crystals (CLC) are inherently periodic. In their ground state, they form a structure where the optic axis of the uniaxial material twists to form a helix and leads to one dimensional photonic band-gap behavior. If a fluorescent dye with emission matching the reflection band is added to these materials, the distributed feedback properties of the structure can result in laser emission when optically pumped. In this work, we show lasing in a CLC directly coupled to an optical ber. The laser emission of this device was characterized by pumping the input end of the optical fiber with a nanosecond Nd:YAG (532 nm) laser.