Lasing at the nanoscale: coherent emission of surface plasmons by an electrically driven nanolaser

Abstract

Plasmonics offers a unique opportunity to break the diffraction limit of light and bring photonic devices to the nanoscale. As the most prominent example, an integrated nanolaser is a key to truly nanoscale photonic circuits required for optical communication, sensing applications and high-density data storage. Here, we develop a concept of an electrically driven subwavelength surface-plasmon-polariton nanolaser, which is based on a novel amplification scheme, with all linear dimensions smaller than the operational free-space wavelength λ and a mode volume of under λ3/30. The proposed pumping approach is based on a double-heterostructure tunneling Schottky barrier diode and gives the possibility to reduce the physical size of the device and ensure in-plane emission so that the nanolaser output can be naturally coupled to a plasmonic or nanophotonic waveguide circuitry. With the high energy efficiency (8% at 300 K and 37% at 150 K), the output power of up to 100 μW and the ability to operate at room temperature, the proposed surface plasmon polariton nanolaser opens up new avenues in diverse application areas, ranging from ultrawideband optical communication on a chip to low-power nonlinear photonics, coherent nanospectroscopy, and single-molecule biosensing.

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

“…Besides, the minority carrier injection properties of Schottky contacts are also proposed to overcome the high-resistance limitation without the requirement of an additional semiconductor injection layer . Most recently, a scheme based on a double-heterostructure Schottky-barrier diode promises to resolve the high leakage currents in the single-heterostructure and ensure in-plane emission for on-chip transmission …”

“…102 Most recently, a scheme based on a double-heterostructure Schottky-barrier diode promises to resolve the high leakage currents in the single-heterostructure and ensure in-plane emission for on-chip transmission. 103 Heat dissipation: Because excessive heat can damage the semiconductor optical quality and even prohibit the lasing process, considerable heat production in a plasmonic nanolaser is undesirable in on-chip interconnects but unavoidable considering that metals are expert in converting electromagnetic energy into thermal energy. Insufficient heat dissipation is mainly attributed to the insulator layer with lower thermal conductivity (e.g., 1.1 W m −1 K −1 for SiO 2 and 0.7 W m −1 K −1 for Si 3 N 4 ) compared with other components (e.g., 429 W m −1 K −1 for Ag, 68 W m −1 K −1 for InP, 16 W m −1 K −1 for InGaAs).…”

Molecular Plasmonics with Metamaterials

“…Metallic nanostructures support surface plasmons, which are collective oscillations of free carriers at the interface between a conductor and a dielectric coupled to an electromagnetic field, manifesting themselves either in the form of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) propagating at extended conductor/dielectric interfaces or as localized surface plasmons (LSPs) in confined geometries. − They have an intrinsic ability to localize the electromagnetic fields down to deep-subwavelength scales and increase local field intensity, resulting in greatly enhanced light-matter interactions. − Therefore, they have opened up a new realm of possibilities for a variety of applications ranging from subdiffraction waveguiding, − biochemical sensing, , and optical modulators − to nonlinear optics , and nanolasers. − In the past decades, benefiting from the advances in chemistry and nanofabrication, plasmonic nanostructures of different materials and shapes − have been developed to achieve an engineered optical response and optimize the field localization and enhancement for a variety of applications.…”

Single-Photon Sources Based on Novel Color Centers in Silicon Carbide P–I–N Diodes: Combining Theory and Experiment

“…However, their electrical excitation is complicated due to the low density of free carriers in wide-bandgap semiconductors [27][28][29][30][31][32]. Meanwhile, electrical pumping is the only possibility to achieve high energy efficiency, integrability, and scalability of single-photon sources [10,[33][34][35]. In this regard, silicon carbide is probably the most promising host material for color centers since the expected brightness of electrically pumped color centers in silicon carbide is significantly higher than in diamond, 2D hexagonal boron nitride, and many other materials [23,36,37].…”