Operating characteristics of a traveling-wave semiconducting polymer optical amplifier

We report a study of light amplification in dilute solutions of the semiconducting polymer poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene-co-benzothiadiazole) (F8BT). The operating characteristics of the F8BT solution amplifier are investigated in detail, and we show that it provides a large optical gain (>40 dB/cm) across a wide (>48 nm) spectral bandwidth in the green. The saturation characteristics of the amplifier are found to be in excellent agreement with theoretical predictions, allowing an estimate of the F8BT stimulated emission cross-section, sigma. We find sigmasimilar to1.7x10(-16) cm(2), comparable with the reported values for established laser dyes and other high-gain conjugated polymers. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.