An organic nanowire waveguide exciton–polariton sub-microlaser and its photonic application

Abstract

Development of nanoscale optical components has been an active topic in nanophotonics, with potential for use in high-speed data highways on electronic chips. Organic semiconductors are low-cost advanced materials, exhibiting ease of processing, along with chemically tunable electronic and optical properties. Moreover, the large binding energy and oscillator strength of Frenkel excitons make polaritons in organic semiconductors highly stable at room temperature. Here, we demonstrate a waveguide exciton–polariton (WGEP) sub-microlaser from a built-in Fabry–Pérot (FP) cavity based on self-assembled organic nanowires (ONWs) of 1,4-chloride-2,5-di[4′-(methlthio)styryl-benzene (CDSB). The strong light–matter coupling results in strong optical confinement, enabling ONWs to guide and steer WGEP laser light on the wavelength scale. An optical router was realized using a dendritic structure as a result of efficient polariton waveguiding and photoluminescence (PL) anisotropy of ONWs, opening a new route to future photonic circuits.