2 research outputs found
Smectic and soap bubble optofluidic lasers
Soap bubbles are simple, yet very unique and marvelous objects. They exhibit
a number of interesting properties such as beautiful interference colors and
the formation of minimal surfaces. Various optical phenomena have been studied
in soap films and bubbles, but so far they were not employed as optical
cavities. Here we demonstrate, that dye doped soap or smectic liquid crystal
bubbles can support whispering gallery mode lasing, which is observed in the
spectrum as hundreds of regularly spaced peaks, resembling a frequency comb.
The lasing enabled the measurement of size changes as small as 10 nm in a
millimeter-sized, 100 nm thick bubble. Bubble lasers were used as
extremely sensitive electric field sensors with a smallest measurable electric
field of 110 VmHz. They also enable the measurement of
pressures up to a 100 bar with a resolution of 1.5 Pa, resulting in a dynamic
range of almost . By connecting the bubble to a reservoir of air, almost
arbitrarily low pressure changes can be measured while maintaining an
outstanding dynamic range. The demonstrated soap bubble lasers are a very
unique type of microcavities which are one of the best electric field and
pressure microsensors to date and could in future also be employed to study
thin films and cavity optomechanics
Smectic and Soap Bubble Optofluidic Lasers
Soap bubbles are simple, yet very unique and marvelous objects. They exhibit a number of interesting properties such as beautiful interference colors and the formation of minimal surfaces. Various optical phenomena have been studied in soap films and bubbles, but so far they have not been employed as optical cavities. Here we demonstrate that dye doped soap or smectic liquid crystal bubbles can support whispering gallery mode lasing, which is observed in the spectrum as hundreds of regularly spaced peaks, resembling a frequency comb. The lasing enabled the measurement of size changes as small as 10 nm in a millimeter-sized, ∼100-nm-thick bubble. Bubble lasers were used as extremely sensitive electric field sensors with a smallest measurable electric field of 110  Vm^{−1} Hz^{−1/2}. They also enable the measurement of pressures up to a 100 bar with a resolution of 1.5 Pa, resulting in a dynamic range of almost 10^{7}. By connecting the bubble to a reservoir of air, almost arbitrarily low pressure changes can be measured while maintaining an outstanding dynamic range. The demonstrated soap bubble lasers are a very unique type of microcavities which are one of the best electric field and pressure microsensors to date and could in the future also be employed to study thin films and cavity optomechanics