Open AccessLasing and waveguiding in smectic A liquid crystal optical fibers
Author(s) -
Karthik Peddireddy,
Venkata Subba Rao Jampani,
Shashi Thutupalli,
Stephan Herminghaus,
Christian Bahr,
Igor Muševič
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.21.030233
Subject(s) - lasing threshold , materials science , optics , liquid crystal , photonic crystal fiber , birefringence , optoelectronics , optical tweezers , laser , photonic crystal , optical fiber , polarization (electrochemistry) , physics , wavelength , chemistry
We demonstrate a new class of soft matter optical fibers, which are self-assembled in a form of smectic-A liquid crystal microtubes grown in an aqueous surfactant dispersion of a smectic-A liquid crystal. The diameter of the fibers is highly uniform and the fibers are highly birefringent. They are characterized by a line topological defect in the core of the fiber with an optical axis pointing from the defect core towards the surface. We demonstrate guiding of light along the fiber and Whispering Gallery Mode (WGM) lasing in a plane perpendicular to the fiber. The light guiding as well as the lasing threshold are significantly dependent on the polarization of the excitation beam. The observed threshold for WGM lasing is very low (≈ 75μJ/cm(2)) when the pump beam polarization is perpendicular to the direction of the laser dye alignment and is similar to the lasing threshold in nematic droplets. The smectic-A fibers are soft and flexible and can be manipulated with laser tweezers demonstrating a promising approach for realization of soft photonic circuits.