A new concept for non-invasive optical sensing: random lasing

Optical sensing has been subject to a great interest for the moderate intrusiveness of its operation. The introduction of random lasers in ’90s has opened the door for developing a new kind of optical sensors. In such a source, disorder is introduced within an inverted medium, increasing the lifetime of the radiation without the presence of an optical cavity. The striking point is that the spectral characteristics of the output emission are strongly dependent on the scattering properties of the medium, suggesting new methods to investigate disordered materials. Recently, a novel concept for optical sensing based on the physics of random laser has been reported,1 overcoming the limits due to the alteration of the investigated sample by injecting an active material. Here we present a characterization of such a kind of sensor, suggesting non-invasive and also in-vivo applications.

[1]  R. Polson,et al.  Cancerous tissue mapping from random lasing emission spectra , 2010 .

[2]  Seok Hyun Yun,et al.  Intracellular microlasers , 2015, Nature Photonics.

[3]  H. J. Caulfield,et al.  Line narrowing in the dye solution with scattering centers , 1995 .

[4]  A. Darzi,et al.  Diffuse optical imaging of the healthy and diseased breast: A systematic review , 2008, Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.

[5]  Stefan Rotter,et al.  Strong Interactions in Multimode Random Lasers , 2008, Science.

[6]  Young L. Kim,et al.  The potential of naturally occurring lasing for biological and chemical sensors , 2014 .

[7]  Philipp Liehm,et al.  Lasing within Live Cells Containing Intracellular Optical Microresonators for Barcode-Type Cell Tagging and Tracking. , 2015, Nano letters.

[8]  S. Jacques.  Optical properties of biological tissues: a review , 2013, Physics in medicine and biology.

[9]  Inocencio R. Martín,et al.  Random laser in biological tissues impregnated with a fluorescent anticancer drug , 2015 .

[10]  R R Alfano,et al.  Competition between two lasing modes of Sulforhodamine 640 in highly scattering media. , 1996, Optics letters.

[11]  L. Leuzzi,et al.  Experimental evidence of replica symmetry breaking in random lasers , 2014, Nature Communications.

[12]  A. Yodh,et al.  Diffuse optics for tissue monitoring and tomography , 2010, Reports on progress in physics. Physical Society.

[13]  S L Jacques,et al.  Biological laser action. , 1996, Applied optics.

[14]  Cefe López,et al.  Measurement of transport mean-free path of light in thin systems. , 2011, Optics letters.

[15]  Vladilen S. Letokhov,et al.  Generation of Light by a Scattering Medium with Negative Resonance Absorption , 1968 .

[16]  Zhengbin Xu,et al.  Random lasing in bone tissue. , 2010, Optics letters.

[17]  Federico Tommasi,et al.  Experimental and theoretical investigation of statistical regimes in random laser emission , 2013, 1309.2412.

[18]  E. Ignesti,et al.  SENSORE OTTICO BASATO SU RANDOM LASER , 2016 .

[19]  Robert R. Alfano,et al.  Mirrorless laser action from optically pumped dye-treated animal tissues , 1995 .

[20]  Hui Cao,et al.  Random Lasers: Development, Features and Applications , 2005 .

[21]  Fabrizio Martelli,et al.  A new class of optical sensors: a random laser based device , 2016, Scientific Reports.

[22]  Robert P. H. Chang,et al.  Random laser action in semiconductor powder , 1999 .

[23]  M. Kacprzak,et al.  Determination of reference values for optical properties of liquid phantoms based on Intralipid and India ink. , 2014, Biomedical optics express.

[24]  Giancarlo Ruocco,et al.  Glassy behavior of light in random lasers , 2006 .

[25]  Federico Tommasi,et al.  Robustness of replica symmetry breaking phenomenology in random laser , 2016, Scientific Reports.

[26]  D. Wiersma,et al.  Light diffusion with gain and random lasers. , 1996, Physical review. E, Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics.

[27]  Hui Cao,et al.  Review on latest developments in random lasers with coherent feedback , 2005 .

[28]  Dengfeng Huang,et al.  Low threshold random lasing actions in natural biological membranes , 2016 .

[29]  A. Kienle,et al.  Optical properties of fat emulsions. , 2008, Optics express.

[30]  Diederik S. Wiersma,et al.  Statistical regimes of random laser fluctuations , 2007 .

[31]  Tai-Yuan Lin,et al.  Biologically inspired flexible quasi-single-mode random laser: An integration of Pieris canidia butterfly wing and semiconductors , 2014, Scientific Reports.

[32]  N. Lawandy,et al.  Laser action in strongly scattering media , 1994, Nature.

[33]  Claudio Conti,et al.  The mode-locking transition of random lasers , 2011, 1304.3652.

[34]  Federico Tommasi,et al.  Controlling directionality and the statistical regime of the random laser emission , 2015 .

[35]  L Angelani,et al.  Phase diagram and complexity of mode-locked lasers: from order to disorder. , 2008, Physical review letters.

[36]  Renato Torre,et al.  Amplified extended modes in random lasers. , 2004, Physical review letters.

[37]  B. Pogue,et al.  Review of tissue simulating phantoms for optical spectroscopy, imaging and dosimetry. , 2006, Journal of biomedical optics.

[38]  Diederik S. Wiersma,et al.  Light emission: A temperature-tunable random laser , 2001, Nature.

[39]  Zeev Valy Vardeny,et al.  Organic random lasers in the weak-scattering regime , 2005 .

[40]  Diederik S. Wiersma,et al.  The physics and applications of random lasers , 2008 .

[41]  Xu,et al.  Spatial confinement of laser light in active random media , 2000, Physical review letters.

[42]  Arnan Mitchell,et al.  Random lasing from dye doped polymer within biological source scatters: The pomponia imperatorial cicada wing random nanostructures , 2012 .

[43]  Ravitej Uppu,et al.  Identification of statistical regimes and crossovers in coherent random laser emission. , 2012, Optics letters.

[44]  Fabrizio Martelli,et al.  Intralipid: towards a diffusive reference standard for optical tissue phantoms , 2011, Physics in medicine and biology.

[45]  Z. Valy Vardeny,et al.  Random lasing in human tissues , 2004 .

[46]  Diederik S. Wiersma,et al.  Chaotic behavior of a random laser with static disorder , 2007 .