Analysis of Lasing in Dye-Doped Photonic Crystals

Recently, we experimentally demonstrated room-temperature lasing of self-assembled opal photonic crystal (PhC) made of rhodamine-B-doped polystyrene colloids. Here, we explain this experimental observations by analyzing the phenomenon of light amplification in dye-activated PhCs via a complex-valued permittivity of the colloids. We show that the lasing is facilitated by the enhanced distributed feedback due to the reduced group velocity in the vicinity of the photonic band edge. This simple approach to the analysis of PhC lasing behavior allows us to calculate the lasing wavelength in close agreement with the experimental value. It also enables the estimation of gain coefficient required for lasing and may prove useful in design of compact PhC-based lasers.