Molecular N‐Type Doping Unlocks Low‐Threshold Nanosecond Lasing in a Microcavity‐Integrated OLED Toward Electrically Pumped Organic Lasers
Organic semiconductors are attractive for the development of flexible, wavelength-tunable lasers. However, most reported organic micro/nanolasers rely on femtosecond-pulsed optical pumping, which is impractical for real-world applications. This limitation has urged the pursuit of electrically pumped organic lasers; yet their realization remains a long-standing challenge primarily due to a fundamental materials dilemma, in which high-gain organic semiconductors often suffer from poor, unbalanced charge transport. Here, we demonstrate that this intrinsic trade-off can be effectively alleviated through a molecular doping strategy. Employing a high-gain spirofluorene derivative as the emissive layer, we introduce an n-type doped layer to construct an organic light-emitting diode (OLED), achieving more balanced charge transport while preserving outstanding optical gain. Consequently, singlet-polaron annihilation is significantly suppressed, as evidenced by reduced efficiency roll-off and electrically pumped transient absorption measurements. When integrated with a distributed feedback (DFB) resonator, the resulting device exhibits ultra-narrow (∼2 nm) electroluminescence under pulsed current injections and delivers low-threshold nanosecond lasing under an optical-electrical co-pumping configuration, thereby demonstrating a practical architecture for implementing organic laser diodes. Our work provides a general strategy to overcome the intrinsic paradox where high-gain organic semiconductors struggle to maintain balanced charge transport, illuminating a pathway toward light amplification under electrical excitation.
Authors
- Z Xu
- Wei Cheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5126-8929)
- Y ZHAO (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-4363-3207)
- Chenmiao Zhao
- Yuhao Xie
- Boning Wu
- Yongli Yan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4859-7454)
- J Yao
- Wenming Tian
- Kang Wang
- Bo Peng
- Leshen Lin
Institutions
- Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences (CN)
- Institute of Chemistry (CN)
- Institute of Physics (CN)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Angewandte Chemie International Edition
- Published
- 2026-06-09
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.5388345
- Primary Topic
- Strong Light-Matter Interactions
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Natural Science Foundation of Beijing Municipality
- National Key Research and Development Program of China
- Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences