Switchable lasers via solvent stimulus-responsive photonic crystals

Organic lasers with switchable lasing wavelengths are critical to a variety of optical devices, including laser displays, data storage and biological monitoring, owing to their tunability, monochromaticity and coherence. In this study, switchable lasing emission is achieved in resonators constructed by solvent responsive photonic crystals (RPCs) and dye doped polymer films. The stopband of the RPCs can be tuned reversibly by exposure to a supernatant of 40% acetaldehyde and tetrahydrofuran. Single-wavelength lasing emission can be obtained by overlapping the photoluminescence (PL) of dye molecules and stopband of solvent RPCs, resulting in single-mode red, green and blue lasing emission in three RPC resonators. Moreover, we demonstrate the switching of the lasing wavelength by tuning the stopband of the RPCs under exposure to external stimuli, i.e., supernatant of 40% acetaldehyde, to match the PL of different dye molecules. The lasing wavelength of the RPC resonators can be flexibly switched by optimizing the stopband of RPCs and the corresponding dye molecules with different colors. In this way, switchable lasing emission via stimulus-RPCs is successfully achieved. This study presents an innovative way to develop multi-wavelength all solid-state organic lasers.