Room-temperature self-cavity lasing from organic color centers

Color centers, which are point defects in crystals, play a crucial role in altering the optical properties of their host materials, enabling widespread applications in the field of quantum information processing. While the majority of the state-of-the-art color centers are inorganic, they come with limitations such as the challenging material preparations and insufficient amount of available centers. In contrast, organic color centers have recently gained attention due to their ease of preparations and tailorable functionalities. Here, pentacene-doped p-terphenyl (Pc:Ptp), an organic color-center system normally used for microwave quantum electronics, is demonstrated for the first time its ability of self-cavity laser emission at room temperature. The laser emission is characterized by strong polarization and high anisotropy, attributed to the unique packing of the color-center molecules within the crystal. The optical coherence is found to be a figure of merit to distinguish the processes of the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) and lasing in Pc:Ptp. This work highlights the potential of Pc:Ptp as a compact and efficient platform for light-matter interactions , offering significant promise for enhancing the performance of solid-state quantum devices based on this organic color-center system.