Polymer lasers assembled by suspending membranes on a distributed feedback grating.

Polymer lasers are fabricated by an assembly method. A polymer membrane is directly attached on the one- or two- dimensional grating. The suspended membrane acts as an active waveguide, which is supported by the grating ridge, leaving air gaps in the grating valley. Most of the radiation is effectively confined within the active waveguide due to the strong reflection at the membrane/air interfaces. So, low threshold lasing can be achieved when the sample is optically pumped. This fabrication method provides an alternative to investigate low-threshold polymer lasers.