Bio-inspired optofluidic lasers with luciferin

The authors demonstrate a bio-inspired optofluidic laser with luciferin, a class of light-emitting compounds synthesized by many different organisms, as the gain medium. The laser characteristics under various conditions such as solution pH value and luciferin concentration are investigated. The authors demonstrate an optofluidic fluorescence resonance energy transfer laser by using luciferin and Rhodamine 6G as the donor and the acceptor, respectively, which takes advantage of the large Stokes shift of luciferin to avoid potential cross excitation of the acceptor. Their work leads to the photonic devices using biosynthesized materials as the gain medium and optofluidic intra-cavity bio/chemical sensing.