Acid mediated tunability of stimulated laser emission from dye doped chiral microdroplets

Abstract

In the last decade, the possibility to use liquid crystal droplets as optical micro-cavities and lasers has attracted much attention since it paves the way for many applications in the field of sensors or tunable photonics. Several techniques can be used to obtain small micro-resonators as, for example, dispersing a cholesteric liquid crystal inside an immiscible isotropic fluid to create an emulsion. Since liquid crystals are extremely sensitive to external factors as temperature or external fields, laser tuning can be easily achieved. Here, we report on the possibility to tune the laser emission from dye doped cholesteric liquid crystals microdroplets dispersed in a glycerol matrix in presence of nitric acid molecules in the emulsion. Using a fluorescent dye with pH dependent optical properties, the emitted laser wavelength can be tuned in a range of 60 nm. This effect could find applications for the development of spectroscopy based sensors.