Journal
OPTICS EXPRESS
Volume 21, Issue 25, Pages 30233-30242Publisher
OPTICAL SOC AMER
DOI: 10.1364/OE.21.030233
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Funding
- European Commission Marie Curie project HIERARCHY [PITN-GA-2008-215851]
- Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS) [P1-0099, J1-3612]
- Center of excellence NAMASTE
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We demonstrate a new class of soft matter optical fibers, which are self-assembled in a form of smectic-A liquid crystal microtubes grown in an aqueous surfactant dispersion of a smectic-A liquid crystal. The diameter of the fibers is highly uniform and the fibers are highly birefringent. They are characterized by a line topological defect in the core of the fiber with an optical axis pointing from the defect core towards the surface. We demonstrate guiding of light along the fiber and Whispering Gallery Mode (WGM) lasing in a plane perpendicular to the fiber. The light guiding as well as the lasing threshold are significantly dependent on the polarization of the excitation beam. The observed threshold for WGM lasing is very low (approximate to 75 mu J/cm(2)) when the pump beam polarization is perpendicular to the direction of the laser dye alignment and is similar to the lasing threshold in nematic droplets. The smectic-A fibers are soft and flexible and can be manipulated with laser tweezers demonstrating a promising approach for realization of soft photonic circuits. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America
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