Nanolasers Enabled by Metallic Nanoparticles: From Spasers to Random Lasers

Wang, Zhuoxian; Meng, Xianwei; Kildishev, Alexander V.; Boltasseva, Alexandra; Shalaev, Vladimir M.

doi:10.1002/lpor.201700212

Cited by 73 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 138 publications

(257 reference statements)

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“…Due to our observations and the reports by Frolov et al and Yu et al supporting collection area dependence of stimulated emission spectra, we propose that the observed multimode emission behavior depends on the collection area, and occurs when a few localized arrangements of AgNPs with interparticle plasmonic coupling modes are sampled. In fact, spasing arising from interparticle plasmonic coupling is consistent with that described for a “random spaser,” as proposed by Wang et al in their recent review article …”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 85%

“…Single mode emission spectra have been reported in both cases; however, in some MNP‐RLs multimode emission is also observed . Both use relatively dense ensembles of MNPs; however, the emission mechanisms are attributed to scattering from multiple MNPs in RLs and to the LSPRs of individual NPs in MNP‐lasing‐spasers . A distinction between MNP‐RLs and MNP‐lasing‐spasers was made by Meng et al, where they showed that the stimulated emission redshifted with increasing dielectric constant of the surrounding gain medium, which is indicative of LSPR behavior .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Short‐Wavelength Lasing‐Spasing and Random Spasing with Deeply Subwavelength Thin‐Film Gain Media

Tracey

O’Carroll

2018

Adv Funct Materials

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Lasing-spasers are subwavelength-sized metal/dielectric structures that emit light via stimulated emission of surface plasmons. Here, it is demonstrated that silver nanoparticles combined with deeply subwavelength, blue-emitting conjugated polymer thin films can function as room-temperature lasing-spasers and random spasers with quality factors up to 250. In contrast to other thin-film-based spaser and plasmonic random laser studies, which have used gain films ranging from ≈200 nm to 500 nm in thickness and which monitor emission guided to the sample edges, in this study, the thickness of the thin-film gain medium ranges from 30 nm to 70 nm and emission is collected normal to the plane of the film. This eliminates effects that arise from optical trapping of scattered emission within the gain medium that is typically associated with plasmonic random lasing. The use of the conjugated polymer thin-film gain medium allows higher chromophore densities compared to organic dye-doped layers, which enables spasing using deeply subwavelength gain layers. Samples implementing gold nanoparticles and the conjugated polymer gain medium do not exhibit stimulated emission, demonstrating that it is the spectral overlap between the silver nanoparticle's surface plasmon resonance and the gain medium's emission that is necessary for observation of stimulated emission from this material system.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 85%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Short‐Wavelength Lasing‐Spasing and Random Spasing with Deeply Subwavelength Thin‐Film Gain Media

Tracey

O’Carroll

2018

Adv Funct Materials

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“…However, there is a possibility to use a single metal nanoparticle or other quasi 0D structures as a lasing nanocavity with 3D confinement, if the confinement is compromised to a certain extent. Since the first theoretical model of plasmonic nanolaser, great efforts have been made to pursue the 3D‐confined LSPR nanolaser . Although lasing emission from active nanostructure ensemble composing of an Au nanosphere core and a layer of dye molecules shell was observed, but lasing from a single nanoparticle had not been confirmed, and the lasing cavity is more likely originated from other mechanisms (e.g., random lasing) than the single‐particle LSPR feedback.…”

Section: Experimental Demonstrations Of the Plasmonic Nanolasersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In 2003, Bergman and Stockman proposed the concept of surface plasmon amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (SPASER) with a plasmonic feedback cavity, whose size is possibly to be reduced far below the diffraction limit of light in vacuum . Later in 2009, plasmonic lasers with mode sizes well below the diffraction limit was reported experimentally, which soon attracted broad attentions from nanophotonics, plasmonics to laser communities . Compared to a conventional “photonic nanolaser” relying on a dielectric cavity with feature size (cavity or mode size) equal to or larger than λ/2 n , a plasmonic nanolaser offers an opportunity to reduce the mode size smaller than λ/20, whereas n is usually smaller than 5 for dielectrics at low‐absorption frequency.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plasmonic Nanolasers: Pursuing Extreme Lasing Conditions on Nanoscale

Gao

et al. 2019

Advanced Optical Materials

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and techniques have been proposed and/ or developed. Here we focus on a newly emerging area-plasmonic nanolaser that pursuing extremely smaller cavity size in one or more dimensions, and consequently extreme lasing conditions, by using a plasmonic cavity with feature size possibly far below the diffraction limit of light.The miniaturization of a laser can be traced back to the early age of the laser, when compact semiconductor structures were introduced. In particular, the introduction of semiconductors as the gain media in 1962, [11,12] followed by a series of elaborately engineered structures from heterostructure, [13] quantum well, [14] vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL), [15,16] microdisk, [17][18][19] photonic crystal, [20][21][22] quantum dot [23,24] to nanowire (NW) [25][26][27] have made great success in shrinking a laser from bulk scale to wavelength level using reduced cavity sizes. [28] For example, to date, typical commercial edgeemitting quantum well laser diodes have dimensions of several micrometers in width and hundreds of micrometers in length, and a single quantum dot can lase in a photonic crystal cavity with overall dimension of merely 0.7(λ/n) 3 , where λ is the vacuum wavelength and n the refractive index of the dielectric. [29] With optimized geometry and material for cavity design, lower structural dimension is expected. However, in a dielectric cavity with limited refractive index n, the cavity size is intrinsically restricted by optical diffraction limit that sets an ultimate limit λ/2n for both cavity length and mode size in all three dimensions.An effective step to shrink a cavity beyond the diffraction limit is converting light into surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) in nanostructuralized metals, which is a kind of collective oscillation of quasi free electrons on the interface of a metal and a dielectric. [30] While SPP is featured with ultrahigh optical confinement and ultrafast relaxation process as shown in Figure 1a, [31] it is inevitably accompanied by ultrahigh energy dissipation (i.e., Ohmic loss), leading to a mutual balance between the mode size and the optical loss in either a nanowaveguide or a nanocavity as shown in Figure 1b. [32] For example, the transverse mode area of SPP mode on an Ag nanowire with diameter of 100 nm can be as small as 0.01 µm 2 but also exhibits a propagation loss larger than 200 dB mm −1 . Despite of the high loss coefficient of plasmonic resonance at optical frequency, a properly designed nanoplasmonic cavity coupled with a gain medium is possible to lase with miniature cavity length.Owing to their ultrahigh optical confinement, plasmonic nanolasers with cavity sizes beyond the diffraction limit of light, are attracting increasing attention for pursuing extreme lasing conditions on nanoscale including ultracompact cavity mode, ultrafast lasing modulation, significantly enhanced light-matter interaction, and Purcell effect. In this review, the recent progress on plasmonic nanolasers from both theoretical and experimental aspects is intro...

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“…This phenomenon can therefore be of use in many different fields of science starting from sensing to photocatalysis to on‐chip optical communications . Plasmonics has been successfully used to demonstrate such devices as optical tweezers, nanolasers, on‐chip modulators, solar water splitting electrochemical cells, lenses, holograms, heat‐assisted magnetic recording, etc. Such a broad range of devices can only be built on a backbone of in‐depth and thorough study of a material platform for plasmonics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Strontium Niobate for Near‐Infrared Plasmonics

Dutta

Wan

Yan

et al. 2019

Advanced Optical Materials

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successfully used to demonstrate such devices as optical tweezers, [8,9] nanolasers, [10] on-chip modulators, [11] solar water splitting electrochemical cells, [12,13] lenses, [14] holograms, [15] heat-assisted magnetic recording, [16] etc. Such a broad range of devices can only be built on a backbone of in-depth and thorough study of a material platform for plasmonics. Gold [17][18][19][20] and silver [21][22][23][24][25] have been two of the most common choice of plasmonic materials. These noble metals have a high carrier concentration and show excellent plasmonic properties in the visible and near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths. Besides these materials, reports on plasmonics with copper [26,27] and aluminum [28,29] can also be found in literature with the latter being exquisitely used for plasmonics at UV wavelengths.Nevertheless, conventional plasmonic materials suffer from one or more drawbacks such as chemical and thermal stability, complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) processing and integration capabilities, etc. Such drawbacks are deterrent to practical applications of plasmonics. Therefore, emerging material platforms for plasmonics have been proposed. [30] Transition metal nitrides (TMNs) and transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) have emerged as alternate plasmonic materials that are devoid of some of the drawbacks of conventional noble metals such as gold and silver. [31] TMNs such as titanium nitride have optical properties similar to that of gold, is chemically resistant, and is stable under CMOS compatible processing conditions. [32,33] TCOs such as tin-doped indium oxide (ITO), aluminium and gallium-doped zinc oxides (AZO and GZO) are excellent plasmonic metals in the NIR wavelength spectrum and show ultrafast tunability of their optical properties under fs laser pulse illumination. [34][35][36] These properties make TMNs and TCOs ideal for many practical applications such as catalysis, [37] plasmonic optical modulators, [38] etc.In this work, we study another emerging material for plasmonics in the NIR, namely, strontium niobate (SNO). This material falls in the category of rare-earth perovskite conductors such as strontium molybdate (SrMoO 3 ) and strontium ruthenate (SrRuO 3 ). SrMoO 3 and SrRuO 3 are materials that have already been studied for their plasmonic properties in the infrared. [39,40] In addition, SNO has recently been suggested as a photocatalyst for water splitting process. [41] Detailed study on the crystal structure, electronic, and optical properties as a function of the film stoichiometry can also be found Plasmonics has developed greatly over the past two decades, and a plethora of plasmonic materials has been explored for practical plasmonic devices across various applications. While noble metals such as gold and silver are the most widely used plasmonic materials, other metals such as aluminum, copper, and magnesium have also been proposed as building blocks for plasmonics. Transparent conducting oxides (TCOs) such as aluminum-and gallium-doped zinc oxide and tin-doped ...

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Nanolasers Enabled by Metallic Nanoparticles: From Spasers to Random Lasers

Cited by 73 publications

References 138 publications

Short‐Wavelength Lasing‐Spasing and Random Spasing with Deeply Subwavelength Thin‐Film Gain Media

Short‐Wavelength Lasing‐Spasing and Random Spasing with Deeply Subwavelength Thin‐Film Gain Media

Plasmonic Nanolasers: Pursuing Extreme Lasing Conditions on Nanoscale

Strontium Niobate for Near‐Infrared Plasmonics

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