Self-curable solid-state elastic dye lasers capable of mechanical stress probing

Opt Lett. 2013 May 15;38(10):1627-9. doi: 10.1364/OL.38.001627.

Abstract

Herein, a highly sensitive stress probe is reported based on pyrromethene 597 (PM597) doped elastic polydimethylsiloxane films. By sandwiching the dye doped elastic film with two plano dichromatic mirrors, a solid-sate microcavity laser with low laser threshold (~0.2 μJ) is presented as a straightforward probing method for mechanical stress, which is monitored by the laser output spectra, demonstrating a resolution limit higher than 0.01 MPa. The photostability of PM597 doped into the microcavity laser is higher than 7222 GJ/mol, which is among the highest record ever reported to our knowledge and a fast self-recovery on the laser output in less than 1 h, attributed to diffusion of dye molecules is observed, indicating a practical durability for such stress probes.