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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2016 Mar 1.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Photonics. 2015 Jul 25;9(9):572–576. doi: 10.1038/nphoton.2015.129

Figure 1. Injected oil droplet laser.

Figure 1

a, Illustration of the injection of oil into the cytoplasm of a cell. b, Confocal fluorescence image of a cell with a PPE droplet doped with nile red dye (red). The cell nucleus (blue) became a kidney-shaped form, giving space to the droplet. c, Bright-field (left) and laser-output (right) images of a cell with a droplet (arrow) above the lasing threshold. d, Output light intensity from a droplet as a function of pump pulse energy, showing a distinct laser threshold (arrow). Dotted line, linear fit to the fluorescence output below the threshold. e, A typical output spectrum of the lasing modes. All the modes are first radial modes, two modes with TE and two with TM polarization. Each mode is split into multiple submodes. From their splitting in this data, the spheroid is determined to be of oblate shape with equatorial and polar semi-axes 8.3 and 8.5 μm respectively. f, Time-lapse variation of the output spectrum for a live cell (left) and a dead cell fixed with formaldehyde (right). g, Standard deviation of the square of eccentricity and corresponding internal stress for live and fixed (dead) cells. Scale bars, 10 μm in b-c and f.