Directional lasing in resonant semiconductor nanoantenna arrays

Abstract

High-index dielectric and semiconductor nanoparticles supporting strong electric and magnetic resonances have drawn significant attention in recent years. However, until now, there have been no experimental reports of lasing action from such nanostructures. Here, we demonstrate directional lasing, with a low threshold and high quality factor, in active dielectric nanoantenna arrays achieved through a leaky resonance excited in coupled gallium arsenide (GaAs) nanopillars. The leaky resonance is formed by partially breaking a bound state in the continuum generated by the collective, vertical electric dipole resonances excited in the nanopillars for subdiffractive arrays. We control the directionality of the emitted light while maintaining a high quality factor (Q = 2,750). The lasing directivity and wavelength can be tuned via the nanoantenna array geometry and by modifying the gain spectrum of GaAs with temperature. The obtained results provide guidelines for achieving surface-emitting laser devices based on active dielectric nanoantennas that are compact and highly transparent.

Active Nanophotonics

“…1(b), for example in the form of a coreshell structure with a metal shell [108]. Dielectric nanoparticles showed themselves as promising for this purpose because they allow incorporation of QDs inside the particle or even can demonstrate intrinsic gain [49], [109] that leads to a large overlap factor. Important classes of such dielectric materials allowing optical gain and optical resonances being nanostructured are halide perovskites [45], [110]- [112] and metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) [113].…”

“…A good example of such high Q-factor states is represented by the strong collective resonances in 2D plasmonics arrays [380], [381]. An ultimate approach in this context consists in utilizing states fundamentally uncoupled to the continuum of radiation modes or so-called bound states in the continuum (BICs) [49], [54], [190], [191]. BICs have no radiation losses, and hence the Q-factor of a structure without no material loss can be unlimitedly large.…”

Active meta-optics and nanophotonics with halide perovskites

“…PL enhancement was observed from Si nanocrystals incorporated in SiO 2 resonant nanoparticles 14 , Ge quantum dots in Si resonant nanoparticles 15 , and NVcenters in resonant diamond nanoparticles 16 . Aiming for more general applications, we discuss the advantages of halide perovskites and compare them with conventional semiconductors such as Si and GaAs, because they are widely used in modern nanophotonics [17][18][19][20] , as well as optoelectronics and photovoltaics.…”

Polarization-based branch selection of bound states in the continuum in dielectric waveguide modes anti-crossed by a metal grating

“…In optics, the BIC is attracting interest in the context of metasurfaces [9][10][11], photonic structures [12-31, 34, 35, 38, 39] and plasmonics [32,33]. So far, various nanophotonic/plasmonic applications using BICs have been proposed, such as lasers [34,35], modulators [32], and filters [16], SHG or nonlinear optics [23,27] etc.…”