A path to practical Solar Pumped Lasers via Radiative Energy Transfer

• Main Authors: Reusswig, Philip D. (Contributor), Nechayev, Sergey (Author), Hwang, Gyu Weon (Contributor), Bawendi, Moungi G. (Contributor), Baldo, Marc. A. (Author), Rotschild, Carmel (Author), Scherer, Jennifer Marie (Contributor), Baldo, Marc A. (Contributor)
• Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemistry (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Nature Publishing Group, 2015-12-28T22:57:41Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

 The optical conversion of incoherent solar radiation into a bright, coherent laser beam enables the application of nonlinear optics to solar energy conversion and storage. Here, we present an architecture for solar pumped lasers that uses a luminescent solar concentrator to decouple the conventional trade-off between solar absorption efficiency and the mode volume of the optical gain material. We report a 750-μm-thick Nd[superscript 3+]-doped YAG planar waveguide sensitized by a luminescent CdSe/CdZnS (core/shell) colloidal nanocrystal, yielding a peak cascade energy transfer of 14%, a broad spectral response in the visible portion of the solar spectrum, and an equivalent quasi-CW solar lasing threshold of 23 W-cm[superscript −2], or approximately 230 suns. The efficient coupling of incoherent, spectrally broad sunlight in small gain volumes should allow the generation of coherent laser light from intensities of less than 100 suns.