Flexible organic-inorganic nanofibers for UV light emission and lasing

Miniaturized optical diagnostics might be greatly favored by the availability of effective, conformable UV light sources combining reduced size with mechanical flexibility. Here we report on our recent results on ZnO-incorporated nanofibers, exhibiting optical gain and polarized emission, used to obtain flexible UV lasers operating at room-temperature. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 682157, “xPRINT”), from the Italian Minister of University and Research (PRIN 2017PHRM8X) and from the University of Pisa (PRA “ANISE”).