Amplified spontaneous emission in an organic semiconductor multilayer waveguide structure including a highly conductive transparent electrode

We demonstrate that the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) threshold in multilayer waveguide structures suitable for the use in future organic injection lasers can be drastically reduced by inserting a crosslinked hole transport layer (HTL) between a highly conductive indium tin oxide (ITO) electrode and the polymer emission layer. While no ASE is observed when the active layer material is directly spincoated onto the ITO electrode, it can be completely restored upon insertion of a 300-nm-thick HTL. This observation is attributed to reduced attenuation of the waveguided mode enabling the ASE process and is theoretically confirmed by calculations of the mode intensity fraction propagating in the absorptive ITO electrode.