Colloidal QD Breakthrough Could Lead to Manufacturing-friendly Laser

Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have incorporated meticulously engineered colloidal quantum dots into a new type of LED containing an integrated optical resonator, which allows the LEDs to function as lasers. The researchers demonstrated an operational LED that also functioned as an optically pumped, low-threshold laser. To achieve those goals, they incorporated an optical resonator directly into the LED architecture without obstructing the charge-carrier flows into the quantum dot emitting layer. By carefully designing the structure of their multilayered device, the researchers achieved confinement of the emitted light within the ultrathin quantum dot medium on the order of 50 nm across. These are colloidal quantum...