A team of researchers from tampere polytechnic university in Finland, the university of Southampton in the UK and case western reserve university in the us have demonstrated a new random laser pointer design, which improves the laser properties and directs the laser output in the specified direction by light-induced soliton waveguides, foreign media reported.
The lasers behave like transistors because solitons help the system run and they emit light in the direction specified by an external voltage control. By combining nematic liquid crystal, all-optical waveguide and random laser, the limitations of the random laser are solved.
Liquid crystals, which are doped with dye molecules to provide a gain, serve two different roles. The soliton waveguide is induced by the nonlinear response of the weak nonresonant continuous wave laser beam, which is called nematic phase. When dye molecules are pumped through pulsed lasers that resonate with them, the scattering properties provide sufficient feedback for random maser.
Scientists have shown that the nematic phase assisted random laser has many typical characteristics, such as the pumping energy threshold of the laser and the narrow spectral peak in the background of spontaneous emission. In addition, the soliton waveguide can collect the resulting light and guide it in a smooth spatial structure to a specific output direction.
The research was funded by the Finnish academy of sciences and tampere polytechnic university.