Optical properties of a tunable microcavity/microsphere polymeric composite

Abstract

The combination of a microcavity and a microsphere has been proposed in this work to manipulate light in terms of emission wavelength and propagation direction. A microcavity with a layer of molecular photoswitch between two one-dimensional photonic crystals of polyvinyl carbazole and cellulose acetate has been designed. To tune the microcavity, the molecular photoswitch has been excited taking into account its cyclization upon irradiation at 313[Formula: see text]nm and its cycloreversion at 450[Formula: see text]nm. In this way, the emission peak of the microcavity switches from 508.5[Formula: see text]nm to 525[Formula: see text]nm. A polystyrene microsphere with a radius of 1[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]m is placed near the microcavity. With the detector at an angle of 8°, the emission at 525[Formula: see text]nm is 1.73 times higher with respect to the emission at 508.5[Formula: see text]nm, while at 10.8°, the emission at 508.5[Formula: see text]nm is 1.45 times higher with respect to the emission at 525[Formula: see text]nm. The value of these findings is that they offer the experimentalists a ready means to compare the optical data of these types of composites with theory.