Thermal treatment effect on the random lasing polarization of polymer optical fiber

Abstract

Influences of annealing process on silica optical fiber have been widely reported, while the thermal treatment effect on polymer optical fiber is still given less concern. In order to explore the application of polymer fiber random laser in magneto-optic effect, in this paper, polymer optical fibers doped with ferromagnetic nanoparticles and laser dye were fabricated. Polarization is a key parameter in magneto-optic effect, while the polarization degree of random laser may be affected or even degraded in thermal environment, so the effect of thermal treatment on polarization degree of random polymer optical fiber laser was verified. Anisotropic scattering leads to random lasing emission with high polarization degree. Experimental results show that the average polarization degree is up to 0.88 before the thermal treatment. The polarization degree remains high and increases to 0.99 after annealing, which indicates that random lasers with stable and high polarization degree have been realized.