Low-threshold organic lasing from a square optical microcavity fabricated by imaging holography

We propose and demonstrate the versatile fabrication of optical subwavelength microcavities by using imaging holography. As a demonstration, a peculiar square optical microcavity with a periodicity of 400 nm is imaged from a micrometer-scale diffractive optical element, attributing to the interference by the refocusing of the multiple diffractive beams. By spin-coating an active conjugated polymer onto the microcavity, highly directional laser emission with a low pumping threshold of 0.5 kW/cm² is achieved. The effect of the film thickness on the lasing performance is also investigated. This imaging holography technique can enable convenient and easy fabrication of optical microcavities with subwavelength features, hence providing significant flexibility and richness on engineering the optical response of photonic nanostructures.