Inside Front Cover: An Ultraviolet Organic Thin‐Film Solid‐State Laser for Biomarker Applications (Adv. Mater. 1/2005)

Thin‐film organic solid‐state lasers operating in the ultraviolet wavelength region are fabricated using a novel spiro‐linked material as active organic layer in an optically pumped distributed feedback (DFB) structure in work reported by Riedl and co‐workers on p. 31. The laser wavelength is tunable between 377.7 nm and 395 nm, the shortest laser wavelength reported so far for thin‐film organic solid‐state lasers. The lasers' suitability for spectroscopic applications was tested by use as an excitation source for solutions containing the common fluorescent dyes Coumarin 6, Coumarin 152, and Rhodamine 6G.