PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Sanhita Ray
AU  - Anjan Kr. Dasgupta
TI  - Light amplification by biofilm and its polarization dependence
AID  - 10.1101/139741
DP  - 2017 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 139741
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/05/18/139741.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/05/18/139741.full
AB  - We report amplified, transmitted light intensity, compared to input, when photosynthetic biofilms were placed in the path of Rayleigh scattered, monochromatic light. Enhancement spectrum shows peak at around 505 nm, which corresponds to the pore wall thickness in biofilm ultra-structure, suggesting role of resonant Mie scattering. Enhancement factors differed when biofilms from different stages of growth were used. Enhancement factors were found to depend on the nature of Rayleigh scattering liquid. Polarizing Rayleigh scattered light by the use of polarizers affected the percentage of enhancement. Amplified output is achievable with constructive interference arising out of coherent forward light scattering, a theoretically predicted outcome of Anderson localization of photons. Possible uses of photosynthetic biofilms in organic material based photonic devices have been discussed.