Continuous spatial tuning of laser emissions in a full visible spectral range

Mi Yun Jeong, Jeong Weon Wu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

In order to achieve a continuous tuning of laser emission, the authors designed and fabricated three types of cholesteric liquid crystal cells with pitch gradient, a wedge cell with positive slope, a wedge cell with negative slope, and a parallel cell. The length of the cholesteric liquid crystal pitch could be elongated up to 10 nm, allowing the lasing behavior of continuous or discontinuous spatial tuning determined by the boundary conditions of the cholesteric liquid crystal cell. In the wedge cell with positive slope, the authors demonstrated a continuous spatial laser tuning in the near full visible spectral range, with a tuning resolution less than 1 nm by pumping with only a single 355 nm laser beam. This continuous tuning behavior is due to the fact that the concentration of pitch gradient matches the fixed helical pitch determined by the cell thickness. This characteristic continuous spatial laser tuning could be confirmed again by pumping with a 532 nm laser beam, over 90 nm in the visible spectral range. The scheme of the spatial laser tuning in the wedge cell bearing a pitch gradient enabled a route to designing small-sized optical devices that allow for a wide tunability of single-mode laser emissions.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2007-2018
Number of pages12
JournalInternational Journal of Molecular Sciences
Volume12
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2011

Keywords

  • Cholesteric liquid crystal laser
  • Photonic crystal
  • Tunable laser
  • Wedge cell

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