Self-organized lasers of reconfigurable colloidal assemblies
Abstract
Biological cells self-organize into living materials that uniquely blend structure with functionality and responsiveness to the environment. The integration of similar life-like features in man-made materials remains challenging, yet desirable to manufacture active, adaptive and autonomous systems. Here we show the self-organization of programmable random lasers from the reversible out-of-equilibrium self-assembly of colloids. Random lasing originates from the optical amplification of light undergoing multiple scattering within the dissipative colloidal assemblies and therefore is crucially dependent on their self-organization behavior. Under external light stimuli, these dynamic random lasers are responsive and present a continuously tunable laser threshold. They can thus reconfigure and cooperate by emulating the ever-evolving spatiotemporal relationship between structure and functionality typical of living matter.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2201.05427,
title = {Self-organized lasers of reconfigurable colloidal assemblies},
author = {Manish Trivedi and Dhruv Saxena and Wai Kit Ng and Riccardo Sapienza and Giorgio Volpe},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2201.05427},
year = {2022}
}