All-optical tunability of microdisk lasers via photo-adressable polyelectrolyte functionalization

Photoactive materials are highly promising candidates for novel applications as they enable all-optical control of photonic devices. Photochromic molecules exhibit a reversible change of their dielectric function upon irradiation with light of proper wavelength. The trans- and cis-isomers of azobenzene exhibit different absorption properties due to the effect of the configuration on the polarizability of the molecule. Here, we introduce a novel molecular/semiconductor hybrid device which is fully tunable by all-optical means via the integration of a semiconductor microdisk into a photo-adressable polyelectrolyte material. We demonstrate that such polyelectrolyte superlattices can be used to tune semiconductor photonic resonators with high precision and without any significant degeneration of device performance. Moreover, we demonstrate an all-optically tunable laser based on this hybrid concept. (c) 2012 Optical Society of America