The best performing modern optoelectronic devices rely on single-crystalline thin-film (SC-TF) semiconductors grown epitaxially. The emerging halide perovskites, which can be synthesized via low-cost solution-based methods, have achieved substantial success in various optoelectronic devices including solar cells, lasers, light-emitting diodes, and photodetectors. However, to date, the performance of these perovskite devices based on polycrystalline thin-film active layers lags behind the epitaxially grown semiconductor devices. Here, a photodetector based on SC-TF perovskite active layer is reported with a record performance of a 50 million gain, 70 GHz gain-bandwidth product, and a 100-photon level detection limit at 180 Hz modulation bandwidth, which as far as we know are the highest values among all the reported perovskite photodetectors. The superior performance of the device originates from replacing polycrystalline thin film by a thickness-optimized SC-TF with much higher mobility and longer recombination time. The results indicate that high-performance perovskite devices based on SC-TF may become competitive in modern optoelectronics.

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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.

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Plasmonic nanolasers with strong field confinement beyond the diffraction limit are an emergent tool for various applications, ranging from on-chip optical interconnectors to biomedical sensing and imaging. However, despite the rapidly advanced research in plasmonic nanolasers, there is no study on their stability and yield yet. Here, we systematically study the stability and yield of plasmonic nanolasers and reveal that surface passivation is crucial for them to operate in biocompatible aqueous solution with high stability and yield. We further demonstrate passivated plasmonic nanolasers as refractive index sensors. The figure of merit of intensity sensing is ∼8000, which is about 40 times higher than a state-of-the-art surface plasmon resonance sensor. Our results hold promise for practical applications of plasmonic nanolasers in super-resolution imaging, ultrasensitive sensing, and detection.

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