The effects of inhomogeneous broadening in an organic microcavity laser

In this work we study the input–output characteristics of an organic vertical cavity surface emitting laser (OVCSEL) with an active layer of Alq3:DCM over 3 orders of magnitude in pump intensity. We find that lasing from this standard inhomogeneously broadened gain medium cannot be described using a single lasing threshold value. Instead, an inhomogeneously broadened distribution of spontaneous emission factors, beta, must be employed in order to correctly model the measured input–output characteristics.