Amplified spontaneous emission in conjugated polyrotaxanes under quasi-cw pumping

Amplified spontaneous emission under millisecond pulsed excitation on a rotaxane-insulated conjugated polymer is reported. Pump-probe spectroscopy confirms the absence of polaron-pair absorption in the gain spectral region as the main factor contributing to quasi-steady-state amplified spontaneous emission. The low polaron-pair yield in this compound is the likely result of effective backbone encapsulation provided by the threading ring. Copyright © 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.