Topological-Distortion-Driven Amorphous Spherical Metal-Organic Frameworks for High-Quality Single-Mode Microlasers

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have recently emerged as appealing platforms to construct microlasers owing to their compelling characters combining the excellent stability of inorganic materials and processable characters of organic materials. However, MOF microstructures developed thus far are generally composed of multiple edge boundaries due to their crystalline nature, which consequently raises significant scattering losses that are detrimental to lasing performance. In this work, we propose a strategy to overcome the above drawback by designing spherically shaped MOFs microcavities. Such spherical MOF microstructures are constructed by amorphizing MOFs with a topological distortion network through introducing flexible building blocks into the growth environment. With an ultra-smooth surface and excellent circular boundaries, the acquired spherical microcavities possess a Q factor as high as approximate to 10(4) and can provide sufficient feedback for high-quality single-mode lasing oscillations. We hope that these results will pave an avenue for the construction of new types of flexible MOF-based photonic components.

Automated summary

A strategy was proposed to design spherical MOFs microcavities by introducing flexible building blocks to overcome scattering losses in MOF microstructures, resulting in high Q factor and sufficient feedback for high-quality lasing oscillations. The acquired spherical microcavities with ultra-smooth surfaces and circular boundaries may pave the way for new types of flexible MOF-based photonic components.