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How to recognize lasing

The race to demonstrate new lasers, including electrically pumped polymer lasers, makes it a good time to reflect on the measurements that must be undertaken to support a claim of lasing.

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Figure 1: Typical output characteristics of a laser.

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Correspondence to Ifor D. W. Samuel.

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Samuel, I., Namdas, E. & Turnbull, G. How to recognize lasing. Nature Photon 3, 546–549 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2009.173

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