Integrated photonic circuits, such as lab-on-a-chip sensors, are expected to become increasingly important in the future. However, so far such photonic chips have typically been made from silicon and have lacked a vital ingredient — their own built-in light source. Although external sources can be used by coupling light into the chip through a lens or fibre, this significantly adds to the size, cost and complexity of the system, especially when several sources are required. The root of the problem lies with the difficulty in integrating lasers and LEDs made from compound semiconductors, such as GaAs, with a silicon platform.
It now appears that polymer photonic chips made from organic semiconductors could be a step closer to providing an answer to the problem. Malte Gather and co-workers from Universität zu Köln in Germany (Adv. Mater. 20, 1966–1971; 2008) have recently reported the ability to embed organic LEDs (OLEDs) into organic channel waveguides. The development suggests that it should be possible to create integrated all-organic photonic circuits that do not require an external light source.
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