Letter abstract
Nature Photonics 2, 429 - 432 (2008)
Published online: 15 June 2008 | doi:10.1038/nphoton.2008.102
Subject Categories: Lasers, LEDs and light sources | Fundamental optical physics
Resonance-driven random lasing
Stefano Gottardo1, Riccardo Sapienza2, Pedro D. García2, Alvaro Blanco2, Diederik S. Wiersma1 & Cefe López2
Abstract
A random laser is a system formed by a random assembly of elastic scatterers dispersed into an optical gain medium1. The multiple light scattering replaces the standard optical cavity of traditional lasers and the interplay between gain and scattering determines the lasing properties. All random lasers studied to date have consisted of irregularly shaped or polydisperse scatterers, with a certain average scattering strength that was constant over the frequency window of the laser2, 3, 4. In this letter we consider the case where the scattering is resonant. We demonstrate that randomly assembled monodisperse spheres can sustain scattering resonances over the gain frequency window, and that the lasing wavelength can therefore be controlled by means of the diameter and refractive index of the spheres. The system is therefore a random laser with an a priori designed lasing peak within the gain curve.
- European Laboratory for Nonlinear Spectroscopy and INFM-BEC, via Nello Carrara 1, I-50019 Sesto Fiorentino (Florence), Italy
- Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid (CSIC) and CSIC-UVigo, C/Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz 3, 28049 Madrid, Spain
Correspondence to: Diederik S. Wiersma1 e-mail: wiersma@lens.unifi.it
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