High efficiency cholesteric liquid crystal lasers with an external stable resonator.

An amplified cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) laser performance is demonstrated by utilizing a binary-dye mixture (with 62 wt% DCM and 38 wt% PM597) as the active medium and an external stable resonator. The measured results show that the laser efficiency is enhanced as compared to the highest efficiency of each individual dye. Furthermore, using such an active CLC in an external stable resonator leads to a approximately 92X improved efficiency over the single CLC laser. In this instance, the binary-dye doped CLC simultaneously functions as laser oscillator and amplifier.