Laser oscillations of whispering gallery modes in thiophene/phenylene co-oligomer microrings

Laser oscillation of whispering gallery modes was observed in microring structures of semiconducting thiophene/phenylene co-oligomer (TPCO) crystals at room temperature. Microring structures were formed by dry etching from thin film crystals of TPCO. The thresholds for the laser oscillation of a microring and a thin film crystal are 200 and 1400 mu J/cm(2) for picosecond excitation, respectively. Therefore, the threshold for the microring was reduced to 1/7 of that for the thin film crystal. The dramatic reduction of threshold clearly demonstrates the importance of microcavity in making efficient organic semiconductor lasers. (C) 2007 American Institute of Physics.