A low-cost method of fabricating perovskite lasers

Perovskites are materials that have the same crystal structure as the mineral calcium titanium oxide. They possess unique physical properties which make them attractive for a number of engineering applications. While solar cells are currently the most prominent application, researchers have also demonstrated interest in perovskite-based optoelectronic devices such as light-emitting diodes and lasers.

Distributed feedback lasers contain a diffraction grating that needs to be patterned with a sub-micron pitch, which requires expensive lithography. A new article describes a low-cost method of fabricating this kind of perovskite laser using a novel grating replication process.

A master grating with perovskite film is placed on a plastic substrate like polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and then compressed with a hot isostatic press. This transfers the lasing perovskite film to the PET, which allows the master grating to be used again and again. The process maintains the structural features of the original perovskite film, with the transferred film also having the same lasing functionality as the original.

The transferred film was excited using a nitrogen laser, and it demonstrated comparable properties to the original laser. In addition, the researchers tested whether any degradation occurred of the perovskite film by repeating the transfer process. As they had hoped, the film was able to maintain its performance after transfer.

The authors believe this process could be applied to other perovskite films that must be transferred to substrates — for example, perovskite transistors or photodetectors transferred to low-cost plastic substrates. Their method could solve the problem of fabricating these devices directly on plastic.

Source: “Film transfer of structured organo-lead-halide perovskite for low-cost lasing applications,” by Matthew Ryan Leyden, Toshinori Matsushima, Fatima Bencheikh, and Chihaya Adachi, Applied Physics Letters (2019). The article can be accessed at http://doi.org/10.1063/1.5113647 .