Abstract

One of the primary difficulties in the implementation of organic-dye-based random lasers is the tendency of organic dyes to irreversibly photodecay. In this Letter, we report the observation of “reversible” photodegradation in a Rhodamine 6G and ${\mathrm{ZrO}}_2$ nanoparticle-doped polyurethane random laser. We find that during degradation, the emission broadens, redshifts, and decreases in intensity. After degradation, the system is observed to self-heal leading to the emission returning to its pristine intensity, giving a recovery efficiency of 100%. While the peak intensity fully recovers, the process is not strictly “reversible”, as the emission after recovery is still found to be broadened and redshifted. The combination of the peak emission fully recovering and the broadening of the emission leads to a remarkable result: the random laser cycled through degradation, and recovery has a greater integrated emission intensity than the pristine system.

© 2015 Optical Society of America

Wavelength dependence of reversible photodegradation of disperse orange 11 dye-doped PMMA thin films

Benjamin R. Anderson, Sheng-Ting Hung, and Mark G. Kuzyk
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 32(6) 1043-1049 (2015)

Emission polarization of random lasers in organic dye solutions

Sebastian Knitter, Michael Kues, and Carsten Fallnich
Opt. Lett. 37(17) 3621-3623 (2012)

Influence of an electric field on photodegradation and self-healing in disperse orange 11 dye-doped PMMA thin films

Benjamin Anderson, Sheng-Ting Hung, and Mark G. Kuzyk
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 30(12) 3193-3201 (2013)

Investigating the self-healing property of an optical Airy beam

Liyun Zhang, Fengjuan Ye, Mingtao Cao, Dong Wei, Pei Zhang, Hong Gao, and Fuli Li
Opt. Lett. 40(21) 5066-5069 (2015)

Observation of photonic paramagnetic to spin-glass transition in a specially designed TiO₂ particle-based dye-colloidal random laser

Pablo I. R. Pincheira, Andréa F. Silva, Serge I. Fewo, Sandra J. M. Carreño, André L. Moura, Ernesto P. Raposo, Anderson S. L. Gomes, and Cid B. de Araújo
Opt. Lett. 41(15) 3459-3462 (2016)