Ayse Turak

By Ayse Turak

Part of the book: Optoelectronics

By Erinn van Wynsberghe and Ayse Turak

While lasers have enjoyed greater popularity, masers—which emit coherent radiation in the microwave spectrum—are also of critical importance to a variety of applications. Recently, an organic gain medium has been developed, which allows emission at room temperature without the traditional encumbrances of cryogenic cooling or an externally applied magnetic field, at vastly improved power efficiency. This discovery opens up new avenues for applications that were previously impractical. However, further investigation is still required for frequency tuning of the device, through the selection of alternate gain media beyond the original choice of pentacene-doped p-terphenyl and some linear acenes similar to the pentacene prototype. This chapter outlines some of the essential criteria necessary to achieve masing with an organic semiconductor gain medium, including zero-field splitting (ZFS), triplet sublevel division, and metastable population inversion. Three tables of possible candidate materials are presented based on this roster of criteria, particularly targeting emission in one of the industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) bands. A selection of preferred guest molecules is recommended for in-situ testing as room-temperature masers gain media candidates.

Part of the book: Optoelectronics