Abstract

Monitoring of environmental pollutants present at low concentrations requires creation of miniature, low-cost, and highly sensitive detectors that are capable to specifically identify target substances. We propose a detection approach based on refractive index sensing with polymer micro-lasers. The sensitivity and specificity of the detection is improved due to a functionalization of the microcavity material which allows specific detection of target molecules (here, heavy metal ions).

© 2011 Optical Society of America