Nanoporous compound materials for optical applications - microlasers and microresonators

This book chapter is the first part of a review of nanoporous materials for optical applications. Whereas the second part [J.Sauer, F. Marlow and F.Schueth, pp. 153-172 of the same volume] discusses material properties, this part gives a self-contained discussion of fluorescence and lasing in dielectric microresonators, with special emphasis on the hexagonal morphology found in molecular-sieve-dye compounds.