Wavelength-tunable colloidal quantum dot laser on ultra-thin flexible glass

A mechanically flexible and wavelength-tunable laser with an ultra-thin glass membrane as substrate is demonstrated. The optically pumped hybrid device has a distributed feedback cavity that combines a colloidal quantum dot gain film with a grating-patterned polymeric underlayer, all on a 30-μm thick glass sheet. The total thickness of the structure is only 75 μm. The hybrid laser has an average threshold fluence of 450 ± 80 μJ/cm2 (for 5-ns excitation pulses) at an emitting wavelength of 607 nm. Mechanically bending the thin-glass substrate enables continuous tuning of the laser emission wavelength over an 18-nm range, from 600 nm to 618 nm. The correlation between the wavelength tunability and the mechanical properties of the thin laser structure is verified theoretically and experimentally.