Imaging the dark emission of spasers

Suppression of the plasmon-quenching effect on light amplification in 20-μm-diameter plasmonic whispering gallery mode resonators fabricated from bowl-shaped organic/metal thin films

Bowl-shaped plasmonic whispering gallery mode (WGM) resonators were fabricated from a 10-nm-thick metal (Al, Ag, or Au) plasmonic layer that was covered with a 100-nm-thick 4,4'-bis(N-carbazolyl)-1,1'-biphenyl spacer layer and a 250-nm-thick 2,7-bis[9,9-di(4-methylphenyl)-fluoren-2-yl]-9,9-di(4-methylphenyl)fluorene light-emitting layer; the layer structure was grown on a 20-μm-diameter silica microsphere. When compared with a reference structure without the plasmonic layer, the resonators, which included either Al or Ag, showed almost the same threshold excitation intensities for generation of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE). This result indicates that the ease of light amplification in the plasmonic resonators was comparable to that in the reference structure. Excitons that exist in the vicinity of metal thin films are generally easy to quench because propagating surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) absorb the exciton energy. Therefore, the observed comparability demonstrates that the plasmonic WGM resonators overcome this quenching effect on ASE via localization of the SPPs in the vicinity of the excitons.

Compact Plasmonic Distributed-Feedback Lasers as Dark Sources of Surface Plasmon Polaritons

Plasmonic modes in optical cavities can be amplified through stimulated emission. Using this effect, plasmonic lasers can potentially provide chip-integrated sources of coherent surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). However, while plasmonic lasers have been experimentally demonstrated, they have not generated propagating plasmons as their primary output signal. Instead, plasmonic lasers typically involve significant emission of free-space photons that are intentionally outcoupled from the cavity by Bragg diffraction or that leak from reflector edges due to uncontrolled scattering. Here, we report a simple cavity design that allows for straightforward extraction of the lasing mode as SPPs while minimizing photon leakage. We achieve plasmonic lasing in 10-μm-long distributed-feedback cavities consisting of a Ag surface periodically patterned with ridges coated by a thin layer of colloidal semiconductor nanoplatelets as the gain material. The diffraction to free-space photons from cavities designed with second-order feedback allows a direct experimental examination of the lasing-mode profile in real- and momentum-space, in good agreement with coupled-wave theory. In contrast, we demonstrate that first-order-feedback cavities remain "dark" above the lasing threshold and the output signal leaves the cavity as propagating SPPs, highlighting the potential of such lasers as on-chip sources of plasmons.

Far-field optical imaging of surface plasmons with a subdiffraction limited separation

When an ultrathin silver nanowire with a diameter less than 100 nm is placed on a photonic band gap structure, surface plasmons can be excited and propagate along two side-walls of the silver nanowire. Although the diameter of the silver nanowire is far below the diffraction limit, two bright lines can be clearly observed at the image plane by a standard wide-field optical microscope. Simulations suggest that the two bright lines in the far-field are caused by the unique phase distribution of plasmons on the two side-walls of the silver nanowire. Combining with the sensing ability of surface plasmons to its environment, the configuration reported in this work is capable of functioning as a sensing platform to monitor environmental changes in the near-field region of this ultrathin nanowire.

Plasmonic Nanolasers in On-Chip Light Sources: Prospects and Challenges

The plasmonic nanolaser is a class of lasers with the physical dimensions free from the optical diffraction limit. In the past decade, progress in performance, applications, and mechanisms of plasmonic nanolasers has increased dramatically. We review this advance and offer our prospectives on the remaining challenges ahead, concentrating on the integration with nanochips. In particular, we focus on the qualifications for electrical pumping, energy consumption, and ultrafast modulation. At last, we evaluate the strategies for on-chip source construction design and further threshold reduction to achieve a long-term room-temperature electrically pumped plasmonic nanolaser, the ultimate goal toward practical applications.

Ultrafast plasmonic lasing from a metal/semiconductor interface

To date, plasmonic nanowire lasers mostly adopt hybrid plasmonic waveguides, while there is a lack of study in terms of the confinement effect and the corresponding ultrafast dynamics of non-hybridized plasmonic lasers. Here, we report ultrafast plasmonic nanowire lasers composed of a single CH3NH3PbBr3 nanowire on a silver film without any insulating layer at room temperature. The non-hybridized plasmonic nanowire lasers exhibit ultrafast lasing dynamics with around 1.9 ps decay rate and 1 ps peak response time. Such values are among the best ones ever reported. Interestingly, the threshold of the non-hybridized plasmonic nanowire lasers is in the same order as that of their hybrid counterparts. The low threshold is due to the ultra-flat single-crystal silver films and high-quality single-crystal perovskite nanowires. The non-hybridized plasmonic lasing in CH3NH3PbBr3 nanowires originates from the stimulated emission of an electron-hole plasma based on our experiments. This work deepens the understanding of non-hybridized plasmonic lasers and paves the way to design electric pump plasmonic lasers by getting rid of insulating layers.

Ten years of spasers and plasmonic nanolasers

Ten years ago, three teams experimentally demonstrated the first spasers, or plasmonic nanolasers, after the spaser concept was first proposed theoretically in 2003. An overview of the significant progress achieved over the last 10 years is presented here, together with the original context of and motivations for this research. After a general introduction, we first summarize the fundamental properties of spasers and discuss the major motivations that led to the first demonstrations of spasers and nanolasers. This is followed by an overview of crucial technological progress, including lasing threshold reduction, dynamic modulation, room-temperature operation, electrical injection, the control and improvement of spasers, the array operation of spasers, and selected applications of single-particle spasers. Research prospects are presented in relation to several directions of development, including further miniaturization, the relationship with Bose-Einstein condensation, novel spaser-based interconnects, and other features of spasers and plasmonic lasers that have yet to be realized or challenges that are still to be overcome.

Applications of nanolasers

Nanolasers generate coherent light at the nanoscale. In the past decade, they have attracted intense interest, because they are more compact, faster and more power-efficient than conventional lasers. Thanks to these capabilities, nanolasers are now an emergent tool for a variety of practical applications. In this Review, we explain the intrinsic merits of nanolasers and assess recent progress on their applications, particularly for optical interconnects, near-field spectroscopy and sensing, optical probing for biological systems and far-field beam synthesis through near-field eigenmode engineering. We highlight the scientific and engineering challenges that remain for forging nanolasers into powerful tools for nanoscience and nanotechnology.

High Performance Plasmonic Nanolasers with External Quantum Efficiency Exceeding 10

Plasmonic nanolasers break the diffraction limit for an optical oscillator, which brings new capabilities for various applications ranging from on-chip optical interconnector to biomedical sensing and imaging. However, the inevitably accompanied metallic absorption loss could convert the input power to heat rather than radiations, leading to undesired low external quantum efficiency and device degradation. To date, direct characterization of quantum efficiency of plasmonic nanolasers is still a forbidden task due to its near-field surface plasmon emissions, divergent emission profile, and the limited emission power. Here, we develop a method to characterize the external quantum efficiency of plasmonic nanolasers by synergizing experimental measurement and theoretical calculation. With systematical device optimization, we demonstrate high performance plasmonic nanolasers with external quantum efficiency exceeding 10% at room temperature. This work fills in a missing yet essential piece of key metrics of plasmonic nanolasers. The demonstrated high external quantum efficiency of plasmonic nanolasers not only clarifies the long-standing debate, but also endorses the exploration of them in various practical applications such as near-field spectroscopy and sensing, integrated optical interconnects, solid-state lighting, and free-space optical communication.

Deep-Ultraviolet Hyperbolic Metacavity Laser

Given the high demand for miniaturized optoelectronic circuits, plasmonic devices with the capability of generating coherent radiation at deep subwavelength scales have attracted great interest for diverse applications such as nanoantennas, single photon sources, and nanosensors. However, the design of such lasing devices remains a challenging issue because of the long structure requirements for producing strong radiation feedback. Here, a plasmonic laser made by using a nanoscale hyperbolic metamaterial cube, called hyperbolic metacavity, on a multiple quantum-well (MQW), deep-ultraviolet emitter is presented. The specifically designed metacavity merges plasmon resonant modes within the cube and provides a unique resonant radiation feedback to the MQW. This unique plasmon field allows the dipoles of the MQW with various orientations into radiative emission, achieving enhancement of spontaneous emission rate by a factor of 33 and of quantum efficiency by a factor of 2.5, which is beneficial for coherent laser action. The hyperbolic metacavity laser shows a clear clamping of spontaneous emission above the threshold, which demonstrates a near complete radiation coupling of the MQW with the metacavity. This approach shown here can greatly simplify the requirements of plasmonic nanolaser with a long plasmonic structure, and the metacavity effect can be extended to many other material systems.

Unusual scaling laws for plasmonic nanolasers beyond the diffraction limit

Plasmonic nanolasers are a new class of amplifiers that generate coherent light well below the diffraction barrier bringing fundamentally new capabilities to biochemical sensing, super-resolution imaging, and on-chip optical communication. However, a debate about whether metals can enhance the performance of lasers has persisted due to the unavoidable fact that metallic absorption intrinsically scales with field confinement. Here, we report plasmonic nanolasers with extremely low thresholds on the order of 10 kW cm^-2 at room temperature, which are comparable to those found in modern laser diodes. More importantly, we find unusual scaling laws allowing plasmonic lasers to be more compact and faster with lower threshold and power consumption than photonic lasers when the cavity size approaches or surpasses the diffraction limit. This clarifies the long-standing debate over the viability of metal confinement and feedback strategies in laser technology and identifies situations where plasmonic lasers can have clear practical advantage.