Mirrorless lasing from mesostructured waveguides patterned by soft lithography

Mesostructured silica waveguide arrays were fabricated with a combination o f acidic set-gel block copolymer templating chemistry and soft Lithography. Waveguiding was enabled by the use of a Low-refractive index (1.15) mesopo rous silica thin film support. When the mesostructure was doped with the la ser dye rhodamine 6G, amplified spontaneous emission was observed with a Lo w pumping threshold of 10 kilowatts per square centimeter, attributed to th e mesostructure's ability to prevent aggregation of the dye molecules even at relatively high loadings within the organized high-surface area mesochan nels of the waveguides. These highly processible, self-assembling mesostruc tured host media and claddings may have potential for the fabrication of in tegrated optical circuits.