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ArcticMyst Security by Avery

All-polymer lasers move closer to mass production

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from optics.org

High-throughput roll-to-roll production methods have been used to make a surface-emitting DBR source.


Fabricating lasers using polymeric gain media and resonators is attractive due to the relative ease of processing polymers compared with inorganic semiconductors, but manufacturing the microstructures needed has been challenging.

Now a US team has made a surface-emitting distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) laser that has a compression moulded gain medium and a co-extruded resonator, which could allow mass production of polymer lasers by rapid roll-to-roll methods Key to the breakthrough was producing the DBR layers. "The roll-to-roll process is the only suitable one for mass production of polymer lasers, but producing the highly reflective multilayer mirrors had been the main barrier," Kenneth Singer of Case Western Reserve University told optics.org. "Our innovation relates to the manufacture of an all-polymer laser mirror as the DBR layer, which means that the laser can be fabricated completely from mass-production manufacturing processes."

Each DBR mirror was made by a layer-multiplying co-extrusion process, which results in a structure having 128 alternating layers of polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) and polystyrene (PS). The difference in refractive indices of the two polymers causes the multilayer film to display a sharp reflection band. Controlling the thickness of the layers during extrusion and by subsequent stretching allowed the reflection properties to be fine tuned.

The gain media were fabricated by compression-moulding thermoplastic host polymers that had been doped with suitable organic laser dyes. Sandwiching this active layer between two DBR mirrors produced the laser structure.

Optically pumped DBR lasers assembled from these components displayed single and multimode lasing in the reflection band of the resonators, with a slope efficiency of nearly 19% and lasing thresholds as low as 90 µJ/cm-2. Altering the layer thickness of the DBR films and the dye in the gain medium enables the lasing wavelength to be controlled. "The low threshold and high efficiency are the result of this laser design," commented Singer. "The design and process is flexible so that lasers of any
wavelength or multiple wavelengths can be produced."


Future developments will focus on more stable lasing gain media and on incorporating the gain medium into the multilayer film. This would allow a distributed feedback laser to be fabricated using a single multilayer coextruder.

"Our main breakthrough is the fact that the laser can be fabricated completely from mass-producible roll-to-roll manufacturing processes, which opens up the possibility of low-cost mass-producible lasers," said Singer. "These could be used in spectroscopy, remote sensing, data communication, storage and display applications."

This work came out of the US National Science Foundation sponsored Centre for Layered Polymer Systems (CLiPS) at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
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Maven

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Re: All-polymer lasers move closer to mass product

i am not sure where you guys keep finding all this cool news ... but keep it coming lol ... it is great ...

now all i want to see is it come to the market
 

danq

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Re: All-polymer lasers move closer to mass product

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: HOLY WOW!!!  :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

"lasers of any wavelength or multiple wavelengths can be produced."

there's your white laser... or chartreuse, or mint chocolate chip... on your t-shirt!

[edited to add]: hey, ya know how you go to a mall or a fair, and they have these custom-while-you-wait t-shirt printing? I can see this technology becoming sufficiently advanced to do that!? Not real bright, just glowing (excuse me, but your shirt exceeds the town brilliance limit - come with me please!")
 
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Re: All-polymer lasers move closer to mass product

Makes me wonder if getting a nice blue/green labby is worth the investment. I mean, the technology might be spitting out awesome lasers of any wavelength if that article has anything to say about it :-/
 

danq

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Re: All-polymer lasers move closer to mass product

Murudai said:
Makes me wonder if getting a nice blue/green labby is worth the investment. I mean, the technology might be spitting out awesome lasers of any wavelength if that article has anything to say about it  :-/
put the money into a good CD or other investment... then by the time this comes to market you may have enough to buy one.
 

danq

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Re: All-polymer lasers move closer to mass product

more ideas:
  • I think this will have many applications which we don't currrently associate with lasers... my ideas have them replacing the functions of LED's.
  • If the wavelenth can be made to vary dependent on an electrical signal, an array of these would give you a TRUE COLOR display!
    If there's not a direct electrical method for that; and if wavelength is truly dependent on layer thickness, or if it could be made so; then perhaps it could be designed so it is sensitive to an applied pressure (kind of like those old liquid-crystal "mood tellers" or whatever they were called). Then, another layer could be added that applies pressure depending on an electrical signal, thus controlling the color.
  • the latter part of the first idea brought this up: if it were pressure-sensitive, an  array of them could be 'played' like an instrument with your hands. Kind of like a visual theremin? talk about Performance Art!
  • given the layer-thickness / wavelength dependency: suppose that layer were designed so that it could be precisely crushed, with sufficient and calibratable force, and then remain permanently at that thickness. Then you place it in a little machine that has a matrix of pins that press on it and are controlled by electrical signals... and is driven by a standard video card... now you have laser silkscreening!
  • Wallpaper.  For the house, not your computer.
    Millions of tiny lasers, making your ceiling and/or walls glow - brightly or dimly.
    Want the mood to be more romantic? turn up the reds. Cooler? bluer. Sunny day? Everybody on high, or duplicate the sun's spectrum! Watch a movie? send one to the livingroom wall; put cartoons to the kids's room. Need to keep an eye the kids playing outside? Feed the surveillance camera to the livingroom and hall while you vacuum, then to the kitchen wall while you fix dinner.
yeah, I know I'm jumping the gun and stretching it a bit... but a boy can dream, can't he??
  :D
DanQ
 
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Re: All-polymer lasers move closer to mass product

With that wallpaper one, it would probably be cheaper just to do it with big LCD screens and some thick glass protecting them :) I don't see lasers as being any cheaper :)
 

danq

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Re: All-polymer lasers move closer to mass product

Murudai said:
With that wallpaper one, it would probably be cheaper just to do it with big LCD screens and some thick glass protecting them :) I don't see lasers as being any cheaper :)
well, there are competing technologies...

as for cheapness, that's the point of the article: they have found a way to mass-produce these. They may become commodity items.
 
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Re: All-polymer lasers move closer to mass product

are these only going to be in big lab modules, or will they fit into pens and flashlight hosts eventually?
 

danq

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Re: All-polymer lasers move closer to mass product

TheGr8Revealing said:
are these only going to be in big lab modules, or will they fit into pens and flashlight hosts eventually?
it really doesn't come down to such an 'either/or' question... but they probably won't be very big, or very powerful (don't most polymers melt?).
 
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Re: All-polymer lasers move closer to mass product

FInaly.. spaceage polymers that are realy space age...
 
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Re: All-polymer lasers move closer to mass product

WOAH...simmer down. Their advancement is in making a DBR on polymer. Basically, all this article says they did is figure out how to make the laser facet mirrors out of polymer on roll-to-roll. "Our innovation relates to the manufacture of an all-polymer laser mirror as the DBR layer, which means that the laser can be fabricated completely from mass-production manufacturing processes." They just figured out how to make mirrors. The thing about tuning the wavelength through layer thickness is that a DBR will only work at certain wavelengths, ie only certain wavelengths are reflected, and those that are reflected are controlled by the layer thickness. All they're saying is that they can make mirrors, and that they can make a mirror that will reflect whatever wavelength they want, and can do it on a polymer. This selectability is key, because, eg a DBR that reflects 99% at 405nm, may reflect ZERO at 532 nm, so you have to be able to select that wavelength with full reflection based on what laser you're making.

What they have made is a solid-state dye laser. They are optically-pumping is, which probably means they're shooting laser light into this mirror-gain medium-mirror stack, and getting gain in a different wavelength from the dye incorporated into the gain medium. At the very least, they're using a very bring flash-lamp. So they're still probably using a laser just like all the others out there, and getting out the color they want from the dye and the DBR. This is still a heck of a long way from "polymer lasers". The statement "Future developments will focus on more stable lasing gain media" isn't nearly as simple as it sounds, organic dyes don't hold up to high-intensity light very well.

Still cool, but don't put off buying the laser you want based on "this might make it obsolete".
 
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Re: All-polymer lasers move closer to mass product

danq said:
it really doesn't come down to such an 'either/or' question... but they probably won't be very big, or very powerful (don't most polymers melt?).

no sir, not all. Thermoplastics melt but thermoset resins do not melt. arent OLED screens made out of organic polymers as well? they emit their own light... no need for a back light like LCD or Plasma screens.
 
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Re: All-polymer lasers move closer to mass product

TheGr8Revealing said:
[quote author=danq link=1217475239/0#9 date=1217519569]
it really doesn't come down to such an 'either/or' question... but they probably won't be very big, or very powerful (don't most polymers melt?).

no sir, not all. Thermoplastics melt but thermoset resins do not melt. arent OLED screens made out of organic polymers as well? they emit their own light... no need for a back light like LCD or Plasma screens. [/quote]

Plasma screens don't have a backlight, either. The plasma is what is making the light, along with the phosphors that the plasma excites to get other colors.
 

Maven

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Re: All-polymer lasers move closer to mass product

i thought plasma screens were kinda like tv's except each pixel is like a separate tube
 
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Re: All-polymer lasers move closer to mass product

Maven said:
i thought plasma screens were kinda like tv's except each pixel is like a separate tube

Not quite. A CRT uses an electron beam to excite red, green, and blue phosphors patterned on the screen in turn to create an image. A plasma is composed thousands of cells that contain an inert gas (neon, argon, etc.). Each cell is coated with a phosphor that will emit either red, green, or blue light when excited by UV light. A voltage is applied to each cell, in turn, which creates a plasma in the cell that is electrified. The UV light emitted by the plasma excites the phosphor in that cell, causing it to emit light. Each cell is "lit" in turn, creating the image. It's actually more akin to thousands of tiny fluorescent lightbulbs (household fluorescent bulbs use a mercury plasma to excite an orangish phosphor, and the combination of light produces white).
 




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