Lasing Emission from Soft Photonic Crystals for Pressure and Position Sensing

In this report, we introduce a 1D photonic crystal (PhC) nanocavity with waveguide-like strain amplifiers within a soft polydimethylsiloxane substrate, presenting it as a potential candidate for highly sensitive pressure and position optical sensors. Due to its substantial optical wavelength respons...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2023-11, Vol.13 (22), p.2956
Main Authors: Lu, Tsan-Wen, Wang, Zhen-Yu, Lin, Kuang-Ming, Lee, Po-Tsung
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amplifiers
Analysis
Crystals
Dimethylpolysiloxane
Emission
Emissions
flexible nanophotonics
Heat treating
nanocavity
Nanoparticles
Optical measuring instruments
optical strain sensors
photonic crystal
Photonic crystals
Photonics
Polydimethylsiloxane
Position sensing
Pressure
Properties
Scanning electron microscopy
semiconductor lasers
Sensors
Substrates
Waveguides
Wavelength
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In this report, we introduce a 1D photonic crystal (PhC) nanocavity with waveguide-like strain amplifiers within a soft polydimethylsiloxane substrate, presenting it as a potential candidate for highly sensitive pressure and position optical sensors. Due to its substantial optical wavelength response to uniform pressure, laser emission from this nanocavity enables the detection of a minimum applied uniform pressure of 1.6‰ in experiments. Based on this feature, we further studied and elucidated the distinct behaviors in wavelength shifts when applying localized pressure at various positions relative to the PhC nanocavity. In experiments, by mapping wavelength shifts of the PhC nanolaser under localized pressure applied using a micro-tip at different positions, we demonstrate the nanocavity’s capability to detect minute position differences, with position-dependent minimum resolutions ranging from tens to hundreds of micrometers. Furthermore, we also propose and validate the feasibility of employing the strain amplifier as an effective waveguide for extracting the sensing signal from the nanocavity. This approach achieves a 64% unidirectional coupling efficiency for leading out the sensing signal to a specific strain amplifier. We believe these findings pave the way for creating a highly sensitive position-sensing module that can accurately identify localized pressure in a planar space.
ISSN:2079-4991
2079-4991
DOI:10.3390/nano13222956