Femtosecond lasing from a fluorescent protein in a one dimensional random cavity

Abstract

We present evidence of ultrafast random lasing from the fluorescent protein DsRed2 embedded in a random one-dimensional cavity. Lasing is achieved when a purified protein solution, placed inside a layered random medium, is optically excited with a femtosecond pump pulse in the direction perpendicular to the plane of random layers. We demonstrate that pumping with ultrashort pulses resulted in a lasing threshold two orders of magnitude lower than that found for nanosecond excitation.