Silver nanowire mediated random lasing in silica cladded dye doped polymer microstructure

In this report, we demonstrate a novel method to achieve random lasing in the diffusion regime. One of the missing features of a conventional random laser is directionality. Here, a novel cylindrical microstructure cavity made of silica polymer combination has been used to overcome this barrier. The proposed structure makes use of a doped PMMA as a core and silica as a cladding layer. This waveguide structure can be easily used as an integrated micro random laser as the outside layer material is silica. A random laser mediated by metal nanowire is demonstrated in a cladded microstructure for the first time. We also observed the lowering of threshold and spectral shift of such lasers with the nanowire concentration. A directional laser emission with a narrow spectral line FWHM = 0.19 nm was achieved in our experiments. The lasing modes from the microstructure were characterized in terms of emission wavelength, lasing threshold as well as the temporal evolution of the modes.

Automated summary

This report introduces a novel method to achieve random lasing in the diffusion regime, demonstrating a cylindrical microstructure cavity made of a silica polymer combination to overcome the issue of directionality in conventional random lasers. The study also showcases a random laser mediated by metal nanowire in a cladded microstructure for the first time, observing the lowering of threshold and spectral shift with nanowire concentration. Additionally, the directional laser emission with a narrow spectral line was achieved in experiments, characterizing the lasing modes in terms of emission wavelength, lasing threshold, and temporal evolution.