Humidity-Controlled Tunable Emission in a Dye-Incorporated Metal-Hydrogel-Metal Cavity

Actively controllable photoluminescence is potent for a wide variety of applications from biosensing and imaging to optoelectronic components. Traditionally, methods to achieve active emission control are limited due to complex fabrication processes or irreversible tuning. Here, we demonstrate active emission tuning, achieved by changing the ambient humidity in a fluorescent dye-containing hydrogel integrated into a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) system. Altering the overlapping region of the MIM cavity resonance and the absorption and emission spectra of the dye used is the underlying principle to achieving tunability of the emission. We first verify this by passive tuning of cavity resonance and further experimentally demonstrate active tuning in both air and aqueous environments. The proposed approach is reversible, easy to integrate, and spectrally scalable, thus providing opportunities for developing tunable photonic devices.