Random lasing from structurally-modulated silk fibroin nanofibers

Wave amplitude gain within wedge waveguides through scattering by simple obstacles

Wave confinement, e.g., in waveguides, gives rise to a huge number of distinct phenomena. Among them, amplitude gain is a recurrent and relevant effect in undulatory processes. Using a general purpose protocol to solve wave equations, the boundary wall method, we demonstrate that for relatively simple geometries, namely, a few leaky or opaque obstacles inside a θ wedge waveguide (described by the Helmholtz equation), one can obtain a considerable wave amplification in certain spatially localized regions of the system. The approach relies on an expression for the wedge waveguide exact Green's function in the case of θ=π/M (M=1,2,...), derived through the method of images allied to group theory concepts. The formula is particularly amenable to numerical calculations, greatly facilitating simulations. As an interesting by-product of the present framework, we are able to obtain the eigenstates of certain closed shapes (billiards) placed within the waveguide, as demonstrated for triangular structures. Finally, we briefly discuss possible concrete realizations for our setups in the context of matter and electromagnetic (for some particular modes and conditions) waves.

Replica symmetry breaking in a colloidal plasmonic random laser with gold-coated triangular silver nanostructures

Plasmonic random lasers have drawn significant attention recently due to their versatility, low threshold, and the possibility of achieving tunable and coherent/incoherent outputs. However, in this Letter, the phenomenon of replica symmetry breaking is reported in intensity fluctuations of a rarely used colloidal plasmonic random laser (RL) illumination. Triangular nanosilver scatter particles produced incoherent RL action when used in a dimethylformamide (DMF) environment in a Rhodamine-6G gain medium. The use of gold-coated triangular nanosilver as the scatterer in place of triangular nanosilver offered a dual contribution of scattering and lower photo-reabsorption, which caused a reduction in the lasing threshold energy of 39% compared to that obtained with the latter. Further, due to its long-term photostability and chemical properties, a phase transition from the photonic paramagnetic to the glassy phase is observed experimentally in the RL system used. Interestingly, the transition occurs at approximately the lasing threshold value, which is a consequence of stronger correlation of modal behaviors at high input pump energies.

New Silk Road: From Mesoscopic Reconstruction/Functionalization to Flexible Meso-Electronics/Photonics Based on Cocoon Silk Materials

Two of the key questions to be addressed are whether and how one can turn cocoon silk into fascinating materials with different electronic and optical functions so as to fabricate the flexible devices. In this review, a comprehensive overview of the unique strategy of mesoscopic functionalization starting from silk fibroin (SF) materials to the fabrication of various meso flexible SF devices is presented. Notably, SF materials with novel and enhanced properties can be achieved by mesoscopically reconstructing the hierarchical structures of SF materials. This is based on rerouting the refolding process of SF molecules by meso-nucleation templating. As-acquired functionalized SF materials can be applied to fabricate bio-compatible/degradable flexible/implantable meso-optical/electronic devices of various types. Consequently, functionalized SF can be fabricated into optical elements, that is, nonlinear photonic and fluorescent components, and make it possible to construct silk meso-electronics with high-performance. These advances enable the applications of SF-material based devices in the areas of physical and biochemical sensing, meso-memristors, transistors, brain electrodes, and energy generation/storage, applicable to on-skin long-term monitoring of human physiological conditions, and in-body sensing, information processing, and storage.

Managing Resonant and Nonresonant Lasing Modes in GaAs Nanowire Random Lasers

Random lasers are promising, easy-to-fabricate light sources that rely on scattering instead of well-defined optical cavities. We demonstrate random lasing in GaAs nanowires using both randomly oriented and vertically aligned arrays. These configurations are shown to lase in both resonant and nonresonant modes, where aligned nanowires support predominantly resonant lasing and randomly oriented favors nonresonant lasing. On the basis of numerical simulations, aligning the nanowires increases the system's scattering efficiency leading to higher quality factor modes and thus favoring the resonant modes. We further demonstrate two methods to optically suppress resonant mode lasing by increasing the number of excited modes. The light output-light input curves show a pronounced kink for the resonant lasing mode while the nonresonant mode is kink-free. The resonant lasing modes may be used as tunable lasers, and the nonresonant modes exhibit near-thresholdless amplification. Switching between lasing modes opens up new opportunities to use lasers in broader applications.

Flexible and tensile microporous polymer fibers for wavelength-tunable random lasing

Polymer micro-/nanofibers, due to their low-cost and mechanical flexibility, are attractive building blocks for developing lightweight and flexible optical circuits. They are also versatile photonic materials for making various optical resonators and lasers, such as microrings, networks and random lasers. In particular, for random lasing architectures, the demonstrations to-date have mainly relied on fiber bundles whose properties are hard to tune post-fabrication. Here, we demonstrate the successful implementation of an inverted photonic glass structure with monodisperse pores of 1.28 μm into polymer fibers with diameter ranging from 10 to 60 μm. By doping organic dye molecules into this structure, individual fibers can sustain random lasing under optical pulse excitation. The dependence of lasing characteristics, including lasing spectrum and lasing threshold on fiber diameter are investigated. It is found that the lasing emission red-shifts and the threshold decreases with increasing fiber diameter. Furthermore, owing to the mechanical flexibility, the lasing properties can be dynamically changed upon stretching, leading to a wavelength-tunability of 5.5 nm. Our work provides a novel architecture for random lasers which has the potential for lasing tunability and optical sensing.

Interplay between Light and Functionalized Silk Fibroin and Applications

Silkworm silk has been considered to be a luxurious textile for more than five thousand years. Native silk fibroin (SF) films have excellent (ca. 90%) optical transparency and exhibit fluorescence under UV light. The silk dyeing process is very important and difficult, and methods such as pigmentary coloration and structural coloration have been tested for coloring silk fabrics. To functionalize silk that exhibits fluorescence, the in vivo and in vitro assembly of functional compounds with SF and the resulting amplification of fluorescence emission are examined. Finally, we discuss the applications of SF materials in basic optical elements, light energy conversion devices, photochemical reactions, sensing, and imaging. This review is expected to provide insight into the interaction between light and silk and to inspire researchers to develop silk materials with a consideration of history, material properties, and future prospects.

Random lasing and amplified spontaneous emission from silk inverse opals: Optical gain enhancement via protein scatterers

Gain amplification and coherent lasing lines through random lasing (RL) can be produced by a random distribution of scatterers in a gain medium. If these amplified light sources can be seamlessly integrated into biological systems, they can have useful bio-optical applications, such as highly accurate sensing and high-resolution imaging. In this paper, a fully biocompatible light source showing RL and amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) with a reduced threshold is reported. Random cavities were induced in a biocompatible silk protein film by incorporating an inverse opal with an inherent disorder and a biocompatible dye for optical gain into the film. By choosing the appropriate air-sphere diameters, clear RL spikes in the emission spectra that were clearly distinguished from those of the ASE were observed in the silk inverse opal (SIO) with optical gain. Additionally, the RL output exhibited spatial coherence; however, the ASE did not. The high surface-to-volume ratio and amplification of the SIO led to highly efficient chemosensing in the detection of hydrogen chloride vapor. Moreover, SIO could be miniaturized to be made suitable for injection into biological tissues and obtain RL signals. Our results, which open the way for the development of a new generation of miniaturized bio-lasers, may be considered as the first example of engineered RL with biocompatible materials.

A random laser based on electrospun polymeric composite nanofibers with dual-size distribution

Electrospun fiber-based random lasers are environment-friendly flexible systems in which waveguiding/scattering processes provided by their structure with a broad distribution of diameters are essential elements to generate a suitable lasing mechanism. In this work, we prepared electrospun fibers with dual-size diameter distribution (above and below the critical value for waveguiding), allowing that both optical processes can be established in the polymer network. As a result, random laser emission was observed for the electrospun fibers presenting dual-size diameters with rhodamine 6G as the gain medium, characterizing the combination of waveguiding/scattering as an adequate condition for development of organic nanofibrous random lasers. Degradation assays were also performed in order to evaluate the prolonged use of such random laser systems.