Copyright © 2003 American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The following article appeared in Applied Physics Letters 83 (2003) and may be found at http://link.aip.org/link/?APPLAB/83/2118/1 ; We report the fabrication of optically-pumped solid-state distributed feedback lasers utilizing two blue-light-emitting semiconducting polyfluorenes as gain media. The lasers were readily fabricated by solution deposition of thin polymer films on top of gratings etched into fused silica substrates. A compact Nd:YVO4 microchip laser was used as the pump source for the two polymers studied, and lasing was achieved at 455 and 465 nm. Low threshold energies, ≥ 4 nJ per pulse, were obtained. The emission characteristics of the lasers are described along with the results of additional experiments that investigate in more detail the effect of the grating microstructure on polymer light emission.