Hands, PJW and Dobson, CA and Morris, SM and Qasim, MM and Gardiner, DJ and Wilkinson, TD and Coles, HJ (2011) Wavelength-tuneable liquid crystal lasers from the visible to the near-infrared. In: UNSPECIFIED.
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
The study of band-edge lasing from dye-doped chiral nematic liquid crystals has thus far been largely restricted to visible wavelengths. In this paper, a wide range of commercially available laser dyes are examined for their suitability as infrared emitters within a chiral nematic host. Problems such as poor solubility and reduced quantum efficiencies are overcome, and successful band-edge lasing is demonstrated within the range of 735-850 nm, using the dyes LD800, HITC-P and DOTC-P. This paper also reports on progress towards widely tuneable liquid crystal lasers, capable of emission in the region 460- 850 nm. Key to this is the use of common pump source, capable of simultaneously exciting all of the dyes (both infrared and visible) that are present within the system. Towards this aim, we successfully demonstrate near-infrared lasing (800 nm) facilitated by Förster energy transfer between the visible dye DCM, and the infra-red dye LD800, enabling pump wavelengths anywhere between 420 and 532 nm to be used. These results demonstrate that small and low-cost tuneable visible to near-infrared laser sources are achievable, using a single common pump source. Such devices are envisaged to have wide-ranging applications including medical imaging (including optical coherence tomography), point-of-care optical medical diagnostics (such as flow cytometry), telecommunications, and optical signatures for security coatings. © 2011 Copyright Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (UNSPECIFIED) |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | Conference code: 86817 Export Date: 4 January 2012 Source: Scopus Art. No.: 81140T CODEN: PSISD doi: 10.1117/12.893494 Language of Original Document: English Correspondence Address: Hands, P.J.W.; Centre of Molecular Materials for Photonics and Electronics, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, 9 JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 0FA, United Kingdom; email: pjwh4@cam.ac.uk References: Coles, H.J., Morris, S.M., Liquid-crystal lasers (2010) Nature Photonics, 4, pp. 676-685; Blinov, L.M., Bartolino, R., (2010) Liquid Crystal Microlasers, , Transworld Research Network; Gardiner, D.J., Morris, S.M., Hands, P.J.W., Mowatt, C., Rutledge, R., Wilkinson, T.D., Coles, H.J., Paintable band-edge liquid crystal lasers (2011) Optics Express, 19 (3), pp. 2432-2439; Hands, P.J.W., Gardiner, D.J., Morris, S.M., Mowatt, C., Wilkinson, T.D., Coles, H.J., Band-edge and random lasing in paintable liquid crystal emulsions (2011) Applied Physics Letters, 98 (14), p. 141102; Kneubuhl, F.K., Proposal for near-infrared and visible dye lasers with tunable helical distributed feedback from cholesteric liquid crystals (1983) Infrared Physics, 23 (2), pp. 115-117; Morris, S.M., Hands, P.J.W., Findeisen-Tandel, S., Cole, R.H., Wilkinson, T.D., Coles, H.J., Polychromatic liquid crystal laser arrays towards display applications (2008) Optics Express, 16 (23), pp. 18827-18837; Manabe, T., Sonoyama, K., Takanishi, Y., Ishikawa, K., Takezoe, H., Toward practical application of cholesteric liquid crystals to tunable lasers (2008) Journal of Materials Chemistry, 18, pp. 3040-3043; Chanishvili, A., Chilaya, G., Petriashvili, G., Barberi, R., Bartolino, R., Cipparrone, G., Mazulla, A., Oriol, L., Lasing in dye-doped cholesteric liquid crystals: Two new tuning strategies (2004) Advanced Materials, 16 (9-10), pp. 791-795; Chanishvili, A., Chilaya, G., Petriashvili, G., Barberi, R., Bartolino, R., Cipparrone, G., Mazulla, A., Pinol, M., Widely tunable ultraviolet-visible liquid crystal lasers (2005) Applied Physics Letters, 86, p. 051107; Katsis, D., Kim, D.U., Chen, H.P., Rothberg, L.J., Chen, S.H., Tsutsui, T., Circularly polarised photoluminescence from gradient-pitch chiral-nematic films (2001) Chemistry of Materials, 13, pp. 643-647; Chambers, M., Fox, M., Grell, M., Hill, J., Lasing from a Förster transfer fluorescent dye couple dissolved in a chiral nematic liquid crystal (2002) Advanced Functional Materials, 12 (11-12), pp. 808-810; Sonoyama, K., Takanishi, Y., Ishikawa, K., Takezoe, H., Lowering threshold by energy transfer between two dyes in cholesteric liquid crystal distributed feedback lasers (2008) Applied Physics Express, 1, p. 032002; Morris, S.M., Ford, A.D., Pivnenko, M.N., Hadeler, O., Coles, H.J., Correlations between the performance characteristics of a liquid crystal laser and the macroscopic material properties (2006) Physical Review e, 74, p. 061709; Morris, S.M., Ford, A.D., Gillespie, C., Pivnenko, M.N., Hadeler, O., Coles, H.J., The emission characteristics of liquid-crystal lasers (2006) J. SID, 14 (6), pp. 565-573; Hands, P.J.W., Morris, S.M., Wilkinson, T.D., Coles, H.J., Two dimensional liquid crystal laser array (2008) Optics Letters, 33 (5), pp. 515-517 Sponsors: The Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) The study of band-edge lasing from dye-doped chiral nematic liquid crystals has thus far been largely restricted to visible wavelengths. In this paper, a wide range of commercially available laser dyes are examined for their suitability as infrared emitters within a chiral nematic host. Problems such as poor solubility and reduced quantum efficiencies are overcome, and successful band-edge lasing is demonstrated within the range of 735-850 nm, using the dyes LD800, HITC-P and DOTC-P. This paper also reports on progress towards widely tuneable liquid crystal lasers, capable of emission in the region 460- 850 nm. Key to this is the use of common pump source, capable of simultaneously exciting all of the dyes (both infrared and visible) that are present within the system. Towards this aim, we successfully demonstrate near-infrared lasing (800 nm) facilitated by Förster energy transfer between the visible dye DCM, and the infra-red dye LD800, enabling pump wavelengths anywhere between 420 and 532 nm to be used. These results demonstrate that small and low-cost tuneable visible to near-infrared laser sources are achievable, using a single common pump source. Such devices are envisaged to have wide-ranging applications including medical imaging (including optical coherence tomography), point-of-care optical medical diagnostics (such as flow cytometry), telecommunications, and optical signatures for security coatings. © 2011 Copyright Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Förster transfer Liquid crystal laser near-infrared photonic band gap visible wavelength tuneable laser Band edge Chiral nematic liquid crystals Chiral nematics Dye-doped Infrared emitters Laser dyes Liquid crystal laser Liquid-crystal lasers Medical diagnostics near-infrared Near-infrared lasers Optical signatures Photonic bands Point of care Pump sources Pump wavelength Security coating visible Visible wavelengths Wide-ranging applications Crystals Energy transfer Flow cytometry Infrared devices Liquid lasers Liquids Medical imaging Nematic liquid crystals Network security Optical tomography Photonic band gap Pumping (laser) Pumps Telecommunication equipment Infrared lasers |
| Subjects: | UNSPECIFIED |
| Divisions: | Div B > Photonics |
| Depositing User: | Cron Job |
| Date Deposited: | 21 Jan 2012 14:10 |
| Last Modified: | 20 May 2013 01:35 |
| DOI: | 10.1117/12.893494 |
Actions (login required)
| View Item |
