Abstract-Cavities play a fundamental role in wave phenomena from quantum mechanics to electromagnetism and dictate the spatiotemporal physics of lasers. In general, they are constructed by closing all "doors" through which waves can escape. We report, at room temperature, a bound state in the continuum laser that harnesses optical modes residing in the radiation continuum but nonetheless may possess arbitrarily high quality factors. These counterintuitive cavities are based on resonantly trapped symmetry-compatible modes that destructively interfere. Our experimental demonstration opens exciting avenues towards coherent sources with intriguing topological properties for optical trapping, biological imaging, and quantum communication.

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Exceptional points (EPs) are degeneracies in open wave systems where at least two energy levels and their corresponding eigenstates coalesce. We report evidence of the existence of EPs in 3D plasmonic nanostructures. The systems are composed of coupled plasmonic nanoresonators and can be judiciously and systematically driven to EPs by controlling symmetry-compatible modes via their near-field and far-field interactions. The proposed platform opens the way to the investigation of EPs for enhanced light-matter interactions and applications in communication, sensing and imaging.

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Miniature semiconductor lasers have attracted a large amount of interest owing to their potential as highly integrated components in photonic circuits or in sensors. Particularly, microdisk lasers exploiting whispering gallery modes have been regarded as important candidates because of their relatively small footprint and low threshold. However, it has been challenging for microdisks to operate under single mode operation and to lase in a preselected mode. We report subwavelength microdisk resonators suspended in air with connecting bridges and propose a simple method using the number and symmetry of bridges to enhance or reduce wave confinement in the whispering gallery cavity. Moreover, a suitable choice of bridges increases the quality factor of microdisks compared to microdisk resonators without bridges. Using this method, we demonstrate single mode lasing of preselected modes at telecommunication wavelength.

Using numerical simulations, we demonstrate that the dipolar plasmonic resonance of a single metallic nanoparticle inserted in the core of a dielectric waveguide can be excited with higher order photonic modes of the waveguide only if their symmetry is compatible with the charge distribution of the plasmonic mode. For the case of a symmetric waveguide, we demonstrate that this condition is only achieved if the particle is shifted from the center of the core. The simple and comprehensive analysis presented in this contribution will serve as basis for applications in integrated nanophotonic/metamaterials devices, such as optical filters, modulators and mode converters.