Photonic lattices in organic microcavities: Bloch states and control of lasing

Abstract

Organic microcavities comprising the host: guest emitter system Alq(3):DCM off er an interesting playground to experimentally study the dispersion characteristics of laterally patterned microlasers due to the broad emission spectrum and large oscillator strength of the organic dye. By structuring of metallic or dielectric sublayers directly on top of the bottom mirror, we precisely manipulate the mode structure and influence the coherent emission properties of the device. Embedding silver layers into a microcavity leads to an interaction of the optical cavity-state in the organic layer and the neighboring metal which red-shifts the cavity resonance, creating a Tamm-plasmon-polariton state. A patterning of the metal can in turn be exploited to fabricate deep photonic wells of micron-size, efficiently con fining light in lateral direction. In periodic arrays of silver wires, we create a Kronig-Penney-like optical potential in the cavity and in turn observe optical Bloch states spanning over several photonic wires. We modify the Kronig-Penney theory to analytically describe the full far-field emission dispersion of our cavities and show the emergence of either zero-, pi-, or 2 pi-phase-locking in the system. By investigating periodic SiO2 patterns, we experimentally observe stimulated emission from the ground and different excited discrete states at room temperature and are able to directly control the laser emission from both extended and confined modes of the photonic wires at room-temperature.