Electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride mats as a novel platform for dye-doped random lasing

Abstract

The development of novel polymer nanofiber-based photonic devices has led to improved optical materials, extremely appealing for random lasers (RLs). Recently, electrospun polymer fibers have been proposed as convenient materials for RLs, leading to a versatile, low-cost strategy for developing new scattering materials. Here we utilize electrospun Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) polymer as the system with randomness (scatterers), varying in all directions, and rhodamine 6 g (R6G) as the gain medium. A transition from amplified spontaneous emission to lasing with coherent feedback in dye-doped electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride polymer mats is observed by increasing the gain concentration from 1 mM to 3 mM. Indeed, for 3 mM dye concentration, we can observe the emergence of sharp laser peaks (where peak width narrows down to ≈ 0.2 nm), which are superimposed on the broad emission band. These results made this simple and powerful disordered platform made of R6G doped electrospun PVDF materials as valuable active media for controllable light emission, which is of paramount importance in optical sensing and for versatile microlaser devices.