Biological Lasers for Biomedical Applications

Chen, Yu Cheng; Fan, Xudong

doi:10.1002/adom.201900377

Cited by 125 publications

(80 citation statements)

References 95 publications

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“…Biolasers -laser sources composed of materials of biological originhave attracted a great deal of interest due to their potential applications in bio-integration and biosensing. [1][2][3][4] Various biological materials including poly lactic-co-glycolicacid, starch, protein, pectin, cellulose, curcumin have been explored for laser microcavities. [5][6][7][8][9] Among these, bovine serum albumin (BSA) is considered to be an excellent biomaterial because of its biocompatibility and the ability to be transported in the human body.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Protein-based microsphere biolasers fabricated by dehydration

et al. 2019

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Protein-based microsphere biolasers fabricated by dehydration

et al. 2019

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“…Conventional FP cavity relies on two highly reflected planar mirrors to form a resonator, in which whole‐body interactions between the electromagnetic field and the gain medium can be utilized for intracavity detection and manipulation. [ 14–18 ] The structure of within the FP cavity can also alter the lasing output characteristics sensitively (e.g., laser mode, threshold, and lasing spectrum). Herein, we developed a tunable laser by configuring the optical confinement, chirality, and polarization at the nanoscale with liquid crystals (LCs) in FP microcavity.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Tunable Microlasers Modulated by Intracavity Spherical Confinement with Chiral Liquid Crystal

Zhang

Yuan

Qiao

et al. 2020

Advanced Optical Materials

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inside or outside a Fabry−Pérot (FP) cavity to control the optical properties of laser emission. [8][9][10][11][12][13] Most studies focused on either the tunability of laser modes or switching of lasing wavelengths. However, the capability to control both lasing spectra and laser modes in a microresonator remains challenging due to the lack of efficient mechanisms to overcome mode competitions. Conventional FP cavity relies on two highly reflected planar mirrors to form a resonator, in which whole-body interactions between the electromagnetic field and the gain medium can be utilized for intracavity detection and manipulation. [14][15][16][17][18] The structure of within the FP cavity can also alter the lasing output characteristics sensitively (e.g., laser mode, threshold, and lasing spectrum). Herein, we developed a tunable laser by configuring the optical confinement, chirality, and polarization at the nanoscale with liquid crystals (LCs) in FP microcavity. LCs have received emerging attention owing to its tunability, in which the orientation of the elongated LC molecules will change under an external stimulus. Additionally, anisotropic optical characteristics can be manipulated dynamically by changing the internal structures in cholesteric LC (CLC). Based on the unique features, LCs have been extensively used in biosensing, temperature detection, and whispering-gallery mode (WGM) laser resonators. [19][20][21][22][23][24] As the chiral dopant increases in CLC droplets, the number of periodic refractive index variation (periodic shells) increases to form higher structural confinement and chirality. Recent studies have further applied CLC microdroplets to obtain spherical or lateral confinement of optical modes. [25][26][27] In this work, we explored the lasing properties of a hybrid FP cavity by modulating light confinement and interactions in a FP resonator. Different configurations of micro-/nanostructured CLC−WGM droplet allowed the versatile design of optical confinement, chirality, and molecular orientation. Taking advantage of the vast complexity and tunability of CLCs, this novel concept provides a simple yet highly versatile method to manipulate laser modes and lasing wavelengths. Three representative CLC structures were prepared and analyzed in this work, with the pitch length (p o ) designed to be larger (p o >> λ), close to (p o ∼ λ), and smaller (p o < λ) than the lasing wavelength (λ). Figure 1a shows that as the pitch length becomes smaller, Manipulation of laser emission offers promising opportunities for the generation of new spatial dimensions and applications, particularly in nanophotonics, super-resolution imaging, and data transfer devices. However, the ability to control laser modes and wavelength in a microcavity remains challenging. Here, a novel approach is demonstrated to control laser modes by manipulating the 3D-optical confinement, chirality, and orientations in a Fabry−Pérot microcavity with cholesteric liquid crystal droplets. Different configurations of intracavity micro-/nanost...

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“…Microlasers have emerged as a promising technology, garnering a tremendous amount of attention owing to its potential for use in biomedical and biological applications . Various types of optical microcavities have been developed, such as Fabry–Perot cavities, photonic crystals, and whispering‐gallery‐modes (WGMs), as implemented in ring resonators, micro‐/nanodisks, and microspheres .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lasing‐Encoded Microsensor Driven by Interfacial Cavity Resonance Energy Transfer

Yuan

Wang

Guan

et al. 2020

Advanced Optical Materials

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for use in biomedical and biological applications. [1][2][3][4][5] Various types of optical microcavities have been developed, such as Fabry-Perot cavities, [6][7][8] photonic crystals, [9] and whispering-gallery-modes (WGMs), as implemented in ring resonators, [10][11][12] micro-/nanodisks, [13,14] and microspheres. [3][4][5][15][16][17][18][19][20] In particular, microsphere-based WGM lasers are appealing candidates for sensing probes owing to their convenience, extremely high Q factor, and potential for application in intracellular and extracellular probes. [13,15,16,21,22] Moreover, analytes can be positioned outside of the optical cavity, where an evanescent field exists at the external interface between the resonant cavity and surrounding medium. [23][24][25] At present, most microsphere or droplet-based WGM lasers are considered to be passive-detection devices, as they require physical changes (e.g., refractive indexes) to induce a resonance spectral shift, and thus cannot provide detailed biochemical information. [26][27][28] In contrast, active-detection devices, which employ analytes as the gain medium, can provide more selective and sensitive information about the biospecies. [8,29] Therefore, the ability to utilize a biological gain medium on the external surface of a microsphere cavity will allow us to amplify subtle changes in the gain medium and the resultant spectra, threshold, and lasing modes. However, the overlap factor for the optical mode and gain medium is much lower than the value of the gain within the cavity, and the background fluorescence also interferes with the external cavity sensing, making this amplification a difficult task. Thus, to enable amplification of these subtle changes, we have applied the concept of Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) at the interface of a droplet-based laser to separate the donor and acceptor at the droplet-surface interface (Figure 1a). FRET is an electrodynamic phenomenon that is highly sensitive to distance, spectral overlap, and the orientation between donor and acceptor molecules. In the past decade, FRET has been used as a powerful tool for providing nanoscale information in many biosensing applications. The performance of FRET is mainly dependent on the design of the donor and acceptor pairs. Several groups recently utilized FRET by using donor molecules as exciton funnels, [30,31] or light-harvesting antennas, [31] to realize a wavelength tunable laser, [30] single molecule nanoprobes, [32] or light redirectioning devices [33] that strongly amplify the emission of acceptor molecules when Microlasers are emerging tools for biomedical applications. In particular, whispering-gallery-mode (WGM) microlasers are promising candidates for sensing at the biointerface owing to their high quality-factor and potential in molecular assays, and intracellular and extracellular detection. However, lasing particles with sensing functionality remain challenging since the overlap between the WGM optical mode and external gain medium is much lower compared to ...

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Biological Lasers for Biomedical Applications

Cited by 125 publications

References 95 publications

Protein-based microsphere biolasers fabricated by dehydration

Protein-based microsphere biolasers fabricated by dehydration

Tunable Microlasers Modulated by Intracavity Spherical Confinement with Chiral Liquid Crystal

Lasing‐Encoded Microsensor Driven by Interfacial Cavity Resonance Energy Transfer

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