Room-temperature continuous-wave operation of organometal halide perovskite lasers

Solution-processed organic-inorganic lead halide perovskites have recently emerged as promising gain media for tunable semiconductor lasers, and have come to rival inorganic III-V group semiconductors as the material candidate for chip-scale lasers. Although electrically pumped lasing at room temperature is the ultimate goal, optically pumped continuous-wave lasing at room temperature,a prerequisite for a laser diode,has not been achieved so far. Here, we report lasing action in a surface emitting distributed feedback methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI3) perovskite laser on silicon substrate, at room temperature under continuous-wave optical pumping, in ambient air environment. This outstanding performance is achieved by the ultra-low lasing threshold of 13 W/cm2, which is enabled by the thermal nanoimprint lithography that directly patterns perovskite into a high Q cavity with large mode confinement, while at the same time improves perovskite emission characteristics. Our results represent a major step toward the realization of perovskite laser diodes, which is essential in the future insertion of perovskite lasers into photonic integrated circuits, for applications in optical computing, sensing and on-chip quantum information.