Nanoporous
anodic alumina (NAA) is an emerging platform material
for photonics and light-based applications. However, demonstrations
of narrow bandwidth lasing emissions from this optical material remain
limited. Here, we demonstrate that narrow bandwidth NAA-based gradient-index
filters (NAA-GIFs) can be optically engineered to achieve high-quality
visible lasing. NAA-GIFs fabricated by a modified sinusoidal pulse
anodization approach feature a well-resolved, intense, high-quality
photonic stopband (PSB). The inner surface of NAA-GIFs is functionalized
with rhodamine B (RhoB) fluorophore molecules through micellar solubilization
of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) surfactant. Systematic variation of
the ratio of SDS and RhoB enables the precise engineering of the light-emitting
functional layer to maximize light-driven lasing associated with the
slow photon effect at the red edge of NAA-GIFs’ PSB. It is
found that the optimal surfactant-to-fluorophore ratio, namely, 20
mM SDS to 0.81 mM RhoB, results in a strong, polarized lasing at ∼612
nm. This lasing was characterized by a remarkably high-quality–gain
product of ∼536, a Purcell factor of 2.2, a lasing threshold
of ∼0.15 mJ per pulse, and a high-quality polarization ratio
of ∼0.7. Our results benefit the advancement of the NAA-based
lasing technology for a variety of photonic disciplines such as sensing,
tweezing, light harvesting, and photodetection.