Room-temperature continuous wave lasing in deep-subwavelength metallic cavities under electrical injection

Ding, Kang; Liu, Z. C.; Yin, Leijun; Hill, M.T.; Marell, Milan J. H.; Veldhoven, P.J. van; Nöetzel, Richard; Ning, Cun‐Zheng

doi:10.1103/physrevb.85.041301

Cited by 127 publications

(104 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…34 Nanolasers based on other metal waveguide hybrid structures have been developed as well. [35][36][37][38] Other light sources may be usable, [39][40][41] but considering the wavelength-dependent properties, multiplexing and parallel data transfer with only one waveguide, nanolasers are the top priority. One of the most important (and yet to be tackled) problems is to efficiently interface a plasmonic laser and a plasmonic waveguide, whose configuration is amenable for realisation of functional components.…”

Section: Plasmonic Laser As a Nanolight Sourcementioning

confidence: 99%

Nanoplasmonic waveguides: towards applications in integrated nanophotonic circuits

2015

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The properties of propagating surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) along one-dimensional metal structures have been investigated for more than 10 years and are now well understood. Because of the high confinement of electromagnetic energy, propagating SPPs have been considered to represent one of the best potential ways to construct next-generation circuits that use light to overcome the speed limit of electronics. Many basic plasmonic components have already been developed. In this review, researches on plasmonic waveguides are reviewed from the perspective of plasmonic circuits. Several circuit components are constructed to demonstrate the basic function of an optical digital circuit. In the end of this review, a prototype for an SPP-based nanochip is proposed, and the problems associated with building such plasmonic circuits are discussed. A plasmonic chip that can be practically applied is expected to become available in the near future. Keywords: nanophotonics; plasmonic chip; plasmonic circuit; surface plasmons; waveguide INTRODUCTIONThe technologies of semiconductor integrated circuits and modern electronic integrated devices are rapidly approaching their fundamental limits in terms of both speed and data transmission rate (DTR).1 One of the promising solutions to these problems is using light rather than electrons in the functional processing components.2 However, the feasibility of fabricating nanoscale photonic devices may be limited because the diffraction limit of light is dominant when the size of a photonic device is close to or smaller than the wavelength of light in the material. Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), electromagnetic waves coupled to charge oscillation at the metal dielectric interface, can circumvent the diffraction limit and achieve localisation of electromagnetic energy in nanoscale regions that are considerably smaller than the wavelengths of light in the material. 3 The electromagnetic field perpendicular to the interface between metal and dielectric decays exponentially with distance from the metal surface while maintaining the long-range propagation of electromagnetic energy along the surface. This essential feature of SPPs can enable the fabrication of photonic components and optical signal processing devices at the sub-wavelength scale.Surface plasmons (SPs) include the localised type (localised surface plasmons, LSPs) and propagating type (propagating surface plasmon polaritons, PSPPs). For the purpose of optical signal transportation and nanophotonic circuits, only PSPPs will be considered in this review, and they are referred to as SPPs hereafter. Because of the unique properties of tightly confined SPPs on metal structures, various types of metallic nanostructures, such as nanoparticle chains, 4-7 thin metal films, 8 metal slits, 9 grooves, 10 chemically synthesised metal nanowires (NWs)

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Section: Plasmonic Laser As a Nanolight Sourcementioning

confidence: 99%

Nanoplasmonic waveguides: towards applications in integrated nanophotonic circuits

2015

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“…The spaser is based on compensation of optical losses in metals by gain in the active medium (nanoshell) overlapping with the surface plasmon (SP) eigenmodes of the metal plasmonic nanosystem. There are many experimentally observed and investigated spasers where the gain medium consisted of dye molecules [6][7][8], unstructured semiconductor nanostructures and nanoparticles [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18], or quantum-confined semiconductor heterostructures: quantum dots (QDs) [19,20], quantum wires (QWs), or quantum wells [21].Classified by mode confinement, there are the spasers with one-dimensional [9,11,13], two-dimensional [10], or three-dimensional (3d) confinement [6,7,18]. The spasers can also be classified by the spasing-eigenmode type, which can be either localized surface plasmons (SPs) [6,7,14,18], or surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) [22,23] as in the rest of the cases.…”

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Electric Spaser in the Extreme Quantum Limit

Stockman

2013

Phys. Rev. Lett.

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We consider theoretically the spaser excited electrically via a nanowire with ballistic quantum conductance. We show that in the extreme quantum regime, i.e., for a single conductance-quantum nanowire, the spaser with the core made of common plasmonic metals, such as silver and gold, is fundamentally possible. For ballistic nanowires with multiple-quanta or non-quantized conductance, the performance of the spaser is enhanced in comparison with the extreme quantum limit. The electrically-pumped spaser is promising as an optical source, nanoamplifier, and digital logic device for optoelectronic information processing with speed ∼ 100 GHz to ∼ 100 THz. Active or gain nanoplasmonics was introduced [1] by spaser (surface plasmon amplification by stimulated emission of radiation). The spaser is a nanoscale quantum generator and ultrafast nanoamplifier of coherent localized optical fields [1][2][3][4][5]. The spaser is a nanosystem constituted by a plasmonic metal and a gain medium. The spaser is based on compensation of optical losses in metals by gain in the active medium (nanoshell) overlapping with the surface plasmon (SP) eigenmodes of the metal plasmonic nanosystem. There are many experimentally observed and investigated spasers where the gain medium consisted of dye molecules [6][7][8], unstructured semiconductor nanostructures and nanoparticles [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18], or quantum-confined semiconductor heterostructures: quantum dots (QDs) [19,20], quantum wires (QWs), or quantum wells [21].Classified by mode confinement, there are the spasers with one-dimensional [9,11,13], two-dimensional [10], or three-dimensional (3d) confinement [6,7,18]. The spasers can also be classified by the spasing-eigenmode type, which can be either localized surface plasmons (SPs) [6,7,14,18], or surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) [22,23] as in the rest of the cases. Among the observed spasers, most are with optical pumping, including all the spasers with the strong 3d confinement [6,7,14,18]. Only few SPP spasers, whose confinement and losses are not strong, are with electric pumping [9,11,13].There have been doubts expressed in the literature regarding viability of the nanospaser with the strong 3d confinement [24], especially with electrical pumping [25]. In a direct contrast, the possibility of the optically pumped strongly 3d-confined spaser has been both theoretically shown [1,3,26,27] and experimentally demonstrated [6,7,14,18]. Here we theoretically establish that the electrically-pumped spaser is fundamentally possible. A principal difference of our theory from the previous works [24,25] is that we consider ballistic, quantum electron transport instead of classical, dissipative one. Another important difference is that the contradicting theoretical work [24,25] on spasers (sometimes also called plasmonic nanolasers) has ignored distinction between the threshold condition of spasing and the condition of developed spasing with N n ∼ 1 quanta (SPs) per generating mode. While for macroscopic lasers with enormousl...

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“…10,24 Such devices have an MISIM cavity in the horizontal plane. Modes of standing waves are formed along the length direction (Y direction).…”

Section: Nanolasers Based On Misim Waveguidesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…17 Only until recently, we have achieved room temperature CW operation under electrical injection on a metallic cavity laser with cavity volume smaller than l 3 . 24 Finally, the spectral linewidth under lasing condition is an important quantity. A more appropriate quantity is the Q value under the lasing condition, since this quantity allows a fair comparison of devices that operate at different wavelengths.…”

Section: A Brief Review Of Progressmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metallic subwavelength-cavity semiconductor nanolasers

2012

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Miniaturization has been an everlasting theme in the development of semiconductor lasers. One important breakthrough in this process in recent years is the use of metal-dielectric composite structures that made truly subwavelength lasers possible. Many different designs of metallic cavity semiconductor nanolasers have been proposed and demonstrated. In this article, we will review some of the most exciting progresses in this newly emerging field. In particular, we will focus on metallic-cavity nanolasers with volume smaller than wavelength cubed under electrical injection with emphasis on high-temperature operation. Such devices will serve as an important component in the future integrated nanophotonic systems due to its ultra-small size.

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Room-temperature continuous wave lasing in deep-subwavelength metallic cavities under electrical injection

Cited by 127 publications

References 33 publications

Nanoplasmonic waveguides: towards applications in integrated nanophotonic circuits

Nanoplasmonic waveguides: towards applications in integrated nanophotonic circuits

Electric Spaser in the Extreme Quantum Limit

Metallic subwavelength-cavity semiconductor nanolasers

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