Lasing from Liquid Crystal Droplets Generated in a Microfluidic Device

Liquid crystal microresonators are widely used in optics and photonics applications due to their small dimensions, very high Q-factor and their tunability properties. Microfluidics allows a precise generation of liquid crystal droplets characterized by narrow droplets diameter distributions. Droplets with different internal configurations, bipolar and radial, can be generated in the nematic and isotropic phases . These droplets can act as simple resonators or be arranged in interconnected periodic configurations when their external dimension are similar. In this work we report the microfluidic generation of dyed-doped nematic (NLC) and cholesteric (CLC) liquid crystal droplets in a thermally stabilized environment, namely water, and study lasing from single NLC or CLC droplets as function of temperature. Tuning effects in a wide range of wavelengths due to changes in droplets dimensions and temperature are also reported.