Angular dependent light emission from planar waveguides

Abstract

We have investigated the angular dependence of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) and laser emission from an asymmetric and free-standing polymer thin films doped with rhodamine 6G, which is transversely pumped by a pulsed Nd:YAG laser. A semi-leaky waveguide or quasi-waveguide structure has been developed by spin coating technique. In these waveguides, the light was confined by the film/air-film/glass substrate interfaces. At the film/substrate interface, a portion of light will reflect back into the film (guided mode) and the remaining refracted to the substrate resulting in cutoff modes. A blue-shift in ASE has been observed when the pump power was increased from 8 to 20 mW allowing a limited range of tuning of emission wavelength. To study the directionality of the ASE from the waveguide, we have measured the output intensity and FWHM of emission spectra as a function of viewing angle (θ) from the plane parallel to film. From the detailed examination of the output emission spectra, as +θ increases from 0° there has been an initial decrease in output intensity, but at a particular angle ≈10° an increase in output intensity was observed. This additional peak in output intensity as +θ is a clear indication of coexistence of the cutoff mode. We also present a compact solid-state laser based on leaky mode propagation from the dye-doped polymer free-standing film (∼50 μm thickness) waveguide. The partial reflections from the broad lateral surfaces of the free-standing films provided the optical feedback for the laser emission with high directionality. For a pump power of 22 mW, an intense line with FWHM <0.2 nm was observed at 578 nm.