Photonic skins based on flexible organic microlaser arrays

Abstract

Flexible photonics is rapidly emerging as a promising platform for artificial smart skins to imitate or extend the capabilities of human skins. Organic material systems provide a promising avenue to directly fabricate large-scale flexible device units; however, the versatile fabrication of all-organic integrated devices with desired photonic functionalities remains a great challenge. Here, we develop an effective technique for the mass processing of organic microlaser arrays, which act as sensing units, on the chip of photonic skins. With a bilayer electron-beam direct writing method, we fabricated flexible mechanical sensor networks composed of coupled-cavity single-mode laser sources on pliable polymer substrates. These microlaser-based mechanical sensor chips were subsequently used to recognize hand gestures, showing great potential for artificial skin applications. This work represents a substantial advance toward scalable construction of high-performance and low-cost flexible photonic chips, thus paving the way for the implementation of smart photonic skins into practical applications.