Interplay of Stimulated Emission and Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer in Electrospun Light-Emitting Fibers

Concomitant amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) and Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET) are investigated in electrospun light-emitting fibers. Upon dye doping with a proper FRET couple system, free-standing fibrous mats exhibit tunable FRET efficiency and, more importantly, tailorable threshold conditions for stimulated emission. In addition, effective scattering of light is found in the fibrous material by measuring the transport mean free path of photons by coherent backscattering experiments. The interplay of ASE and FRET leads to high control in designing optical properties from electrospun fibers, including the occurrence of simultaneous stimulated emission from both donor and acceptor components. All tunable-optical properties are highly interesting in view of applying electrospun light-emitting materials in lightening, display, and sensing technologies.