Abstract
We report the demonstration of low order distributed feedback (DFB) optofluidic dye lasers with reduced threshold. The laser chips were realized in polydimethylsiloxane using replica molding with two masters. A comparison between first, second, and third order DFB dye lasers was performed, while the second order DFB dye laser exhibited the lowest pump threshold of 78 nJ/pulse. Compared to previous reports on higher order Bragg grating structures, the pump threshold in this work is approximately 30-fold lower than the state of the art due to the reduction in the cavity losses and the more efficient pumping configuration.