Two-Photon Poly(phenylenevinylene) DFB Laser

Two-photon pumped lasing of a poly(phenylenevinylene)-titania-silica (PPV-TiO2-SiO2) nanocomposite comprised of PPV synthesized within the void spaces of a multilayer nanoparticle TiO2 and SiO2 1D photonic crystal is reported for the first time. With this distributed feedback (DFB) device, we have discovered the surprising result that two photon lasing requires only a factor of 2 higher intensity than one photon lasing thereby allowing laser excitation densities far below those that cause material degradation. The lower excitation density makes possible laser operation in the high-repetition rate regime and the use of compact and cheap NIR pump sources. All this makes our device rather interesting for optical telecommunication applications.