Random lasing in dye-doped electrospun PMMA fibers with different emission modes

Abstract

Random lasers (RLs) have significant applications in micro-nano light emitters, micro-detection, and speckle-free imaging due to their novel properties in low spatial coherence, small size and multi-emission directions. A flexible, affordable approach for creating new scattering materials has recently been suggested for electrospun fibers, which are practical materials for RLs. In this article, we employ the electrospun PMMA fibers as scatters and the DCJTB as gain materials to generate an RL system. The sample shows obvious incoherent random lasing properties. A decrease of the lasing threshold by 32 % is realized when we increase the electrospun voltage from 12 kV to 15 kV due to the generation of a small mean diameter size and concentrated diameter distribution. The lasing threshold of the DCJTB/Au NPs-doped PMMA sample is further reduced to 19.8 μJ/mm2 by incorporating Au NPs into the electrospun dye-doped fibers. This leads to a lasing threshold reduction of 40 % from the electrospun sample without doping Au NPs and 52 % from the spin-coated film sample, respectively. It indicates that the electrospun method is an efficient and practical approach to make RLs. Furthermore, using single pulse laser stimulation, we investigated several different lasing modes, including spontaneous emission, short wavelength domain, mode competition, and single mode. The actions of photon scattering are analyzed to explain the dramatic lasing process. Due to the photon scattering optical path, there are mode competition and single mode emission regions under different pump energy. The light spot quality of RL shows low spatial coherence with the useful application of speckle-free imaging. This research provides a new method of electrospun to produce low-threshold and high-quality RLs and potentially opens the door for expanding their use in optics and optoelectronic equipment.