Abstract

Commercially available compound semiconductor lasers are made of single crystalline films fabricated by hetro-epitaxial growth on lattice-matched substrates. However, epitaxial growth techniques are not only expensive but also very restrictive to the type of substrates which can be used. To overcome these restrictions, we have been searching for inorganic laser materials that do not require epitaxial growth. In this article, we report what we believe to be the first attempt of such an effort: the demonstration of UV laser action in ZnO polycrystalline films grown on amorphous fused silica substrates.

© 1998 Optical Society of America