Lasing from thick anisotropic layer sandwiched between polymeric cholesteric liquid crystal films

Abstract

We have demonstrated a new type of lasing mode in a dye-doped 100-mu m-thick nematic liquid crystal layer sandwiched between two polymeric cholesteric liquid crystal films functioning as a photonic crystal. The fabricated cell exhibits several characteristic dips in the transmittance spectrum in addition to fine fringes originating from a Fabry-Perot cavity mode. These dips are due to the phase retardation between optical eigenmodes in the birefringent medium, which is not realized in an isotropic layer. The cell shows multimode lasing at wavelengths corresponding to transmittance maxima within the stopband region when the nematic layer is doped with dyes.