Enhanced transduction of photonic crystal dye lasers for gas sensing via swelling polymer film

Abstract

We present the enhanced transduction of a photonic crystal dye laser for gas sensing via deposition of an additional swelling polymer film. Device operation involves swelling of the polymer film during exposure to specific gases, leading to a change in total effective refractive index. Experimental results show an enhancement of 16.09 dB in sensing ethanol vapor after deposition of a polystyrene film. We verify different responses of the polystyrene film when exposed to either ethanol vapor or increased humidity, indicating selectivity. The concept is generic and, in principle, straightforward in its application to other intracavity-based detection schemes to enable gas sensing.

Nanoimprinted distributed feedback lasers comprising TiO2 thin films: Design guidelines for high performance sensing

“…The fabrication technique based on nanoimprint is parallel, simple, rapid, and utilizes commercially available materials. In particular, lasers formed this way are non‐swelling and stable in both aqueous solutions and organic solvents , making them suitable for various sensing applications.…”

“…Compact devices represent especially promising tools by enabling remote deployment for emerging fields such as biosensing and point‐of‐care diagnostics . In this regard, distributed feedback (DFB) dye lasers are well suited to serve as highly sensitive, minimal analyte volume, compact refractive index sensors, where changes occurring in the analyte result in readily measurable shifts of the laser emission wavelength .…”

Slow Scale Maxwell-Bloch Equations for Active Photonic Crystals

“…They also provide a mean to tailor the laser beam shape [17], and control the polarization mode of the laser [18]. Examples of the active constituents used in PC include quantum dots [8][9][10][19][20][21], Erbium ions [22,23], organic dyes [24,25], and active semiconductor materials [12][13][14][15][16].…”

Gas sensing using a resilient polymer photonic crystal nanocavity with ultra-high quality factor

“…Photonic crystal cavities and resonators are able to further amplify these optical signals. Previous work has used materials that are sensitive to particular vapors, such as polymers, as coatings for their optical sensors [1][2][3]. We construct our sensor out of these sensitive polymeric materials, yielding increased sensitivity and resolution.…”