Bleaching and diffusion dynamics in optofluidic dye lasers

The authors have investigated the bleaching dynamics that occur in optofluidic dye lasers where the liquid laser dye in a microfluidic channel is locally bleached due to optical pumping. They find that for microfluidic devices, the dye bleaching may be compensated through diffusion of dye molecules alone. By relying on diffusion rather than convection to generate the necessary dye replenishment, their observation potentially allows for a significant simplification of optofluidic dye laser device layouts, omitting the need for cumbersome and costly external fluidic handling or on-chip microfluidic pumping devices. ©2007 American Institute of Physics.