Random laser emission from dye-doped polymer films enhanced by SiC nanowires

Abstract As the third-generation semiconductor electronic material, silicon carbide (SiC) has good chemical stability and mechanical properties, leading to wide use in optoelectronic components, fiber sensing and detectors. However, there are few important reports on its application in the research of random laser. Hereby, we built a polymer random laser system with SiC nanowires as a scattering medium doped with dye by the spin coating method. The effect of different SiC concentrations on random laser properties and the enhancement mechanism are studied. The lasing intensity increases and threshold decrease in large concentration SiC nanowires at the same lasing system, and the minimum threshold is 20 μ J/pulse. By increasing the SiC concentration, the mean free path of photon scattering decreases, which promotes the photon gain effect and improves the laser performance. However, when the concentration of SiC nanowires is too large, the mean free path of photon scattering decreases further, and the self-absorption of fluorescence radiation emerges. Thus, fluorescence quenching is produced, leading to a negative effect on laser performance. Furthermore, the lasing wavelength can be adjusted by tuning the SiC nanowires concentrations, reaching 14 nm. The random laser enhanced by SiC nanowires is stable and pumped repeatable, which could pave the way to promote the application of SiC and achieve low-cost and high-performance random laser.