Despite their broad impact across many applications, conventional fibre lasers remain constrained in their accessible emission wavelengths. In our latest publication, “Stimulated Emission from 2D CdSe/CdS Nanoplatelets Integrated in a Liquid-Core Fiber” (Nano Letters 2026, DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.5c05747), we address this limitation in collaboration with Jannika Lauth’s group at the University of Tübingen and with Markus Schmidt and Mario Chemnitz at the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (IPHT) in Jena.
For the first time, we have integrated colloidally dispersed CdSe/CdS core/crown 2D nanoplatelets into liquid-core optical fibres and observed amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) under quasi-CW pumping. Our novel fibre-based platform achieves net gain with an ASE threshold as low as 1.8 kW/cm2, even at nanoplatelet concentrations two orders of magnitude below those typically required to attain gain with conventional 0D colloidal quantum dots. We show that the fibre’s low-loss optical waveguiding is crucial for efficient ASE.
These proof-of-concept results have two key implications: first, liquid-core fibres offer a promising route to integrating colloidal nanomaterials into lasing architectures; second, nanoplatelet-filled liquid-core fibres constitute a viable path towards highly efficient, wavelength-tuneable fibre lasers in the visible.
