Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Droplet microlasers, as promising tools for biophotonics and biomedical sciences, have witnessed rapid advances due to their flexible reconfigurability, high sensitivity to stimuli, and label-free biosensing ability. However, designing these biosensors with simultaneously critical properties of low lasing threshold, high spectral purity, and ultimate sensitivity remains challenging. Here, we propose a versatile strategy to build liquid photonic molecules (LPMs) that combine all these features in a single device. We find that through tailoring the spectral Vernier overlap in size-mismatched droplets, this device enables single-mode lasing with a low threshold of ~610 nJ mm−2. The LPM lasers are engineered for dynamic tunability using a molecular isomerization strategy, which induces spectral mode hopping and thus yields a nearly ten-fold enhancement in spectral sensitivity over single droplets. Moreover, by leveraging the self-referenced intensity response of the LPM lasing modes, we demonstrate a three-orders-of-magnitude enhancement in biomolecular sensing, with a detection limit of 30 aM and a dynamic range spanning nine orders of magnitude. Our work offers exciting prospects for bio-integrated liquid sensors in diverse applications. Droplet microlasers are emerging as powerful tools for label-free biosensing. Here, the authors demonstrate a new method for creating liquid photonic-molecule microlasers that combine low lasing threshold and enhanced sensitivity, achieving biomolecular detection limit down to attoMolar level.
Source: Nature Communications
Language: English
Topic: Photonic and Optical Devices
Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $6,990
OpenAlex ID: W7130841386