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Zhao Qing, Huang Xiaoping, Lin En, et al. Advances of plasmonic nanolasers[J]. Opto-Electronic Engineering, 2017, 44(2): 140-151. doi: 10.3969/j.issn.1003-501X.2017.02.002
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Advances of plasmonic nanolasers
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Abstract
Semiconductor lasers are widely used for applications in biology, information storage, photonics and medical therapeutics. With the development of the emerging area of nano-optics and nanophotonics, more compact lasers attract significant interest. As the cavity size is reduced with respect to the emission wavelength, interesting physical effects in electromagnetic cavities arise. To scale down the semiconductor lasers in all three dimensions plays an important role in the development of low-dimension, low-threshold, and ultrafast coherent light sources, as well as integrated nano-optoelectronic and plasmonic circuits. In this review, the overall formalism of mode gain and confinement factor in the metal–semiconductor plasmonic lasers was introduced firstly. In addition, an updated overview of the latest developments, particularly in plasmonic nanolasers using the metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) configuration and another related metal-cladded semiconductor microlasers was presented. In particular, it has been experimentally demonstrated that the use of plasmonic cavities based on MIS nanostructures can indeed break the diffraction limit in three dimensions. We also present some perspectives on the challenges and development trend for the plasmonic nanolasers. This review can provide useful guide for the research of plasmonic nanolasers.-
Keywords:
- plasmonic nanolaser /
- surface plasmon /
- micro/nanofabrication
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References
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Overview
Abstract: Semiconductor lasers are widely used for applications in biology, information storage, photonics and medical therapeutics. Along with the emerging area of nano-optics and nanophotonics, more compact lasers with size miniaturization attract significant interest. Last decades, many researchers tried to investigate the miniaturization technology of photon laser. The aiming is to obtain higher density devices integrated on smaller semiconductor chip. As the cavity size is reduced with respect to the emission wavelength, interesting physical effects, unique to electromagnetic cavities, arise. So, to scale down the semiconductor lasers in all three dimensions plays an important role in the developing of low-dimension, low-threshold, and ultrafast coherent light sources, as well as integrated nano-optoelectronic and plasmonic circuits. For this purpose, the nanolasers and smaller plasmonic nanolasers are developed during the last years. However, for the conventional semiconductor laser using dielectric cavity oscillator (photon cavity), the noticeable obstacle from diffraction limit confines the feature sizes of the nanodevices all the time, and makes them unable to get down to half wavelength level. These years, the invention of plasmonic nanolaser, where the light is enhanced by stimulated emission based on surface plasmon, can break through the bottleneck of optical diffraction limit and give out light with subwavelength scale. In this review, above all, the principle of cavity used in laser and the theory of the modal gain are illustrated generally. Besides, the important properties and the technical characters of the plasmonic nanolasers are introduced briefly. Then, the overall research progress of the plasmonic nanolasers are presented, which is explained by some typical plasmonic nanolasers, such as, surface palsmon-optical mode hybrid nanolaser, metal-dielectric heterogenic cavity plasmonic nanolaser, metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) subwavelength plasmonic nanolaser are introduced by turn. In addition, an updated overview of the latest developments, particularly in plasmonic nanolasers using the MIS configuration and other related metal-cladded semiconductor microlasers is presented. In particular, it has been experimentally demonstrated that the use of plasmonic cavities based on MIS nanostructures can indeed break the diffraction limit in all three dimensions. The research group proposed a new plasmonic nanolaser based on semiconductor nanowire/air spacer/metal film composited structure. This structure can get modes coupling between the surface plasmon on the metal and the high gain nanowire, which makes the enhancement effect increased obviously. It is shown that the structure can confine the output optical field to subwavength scale, and keep low transmission loss and high ability of the confinement. In this review, the experimental results are presented in detail. In the end, we give a contrast about the parameters and results for the new achievement in palsmonic nanolasers research area. Based on the recent development of the plasmonic nanolaser, we conclude about the developing trend. We also give some perspectives on the challenges and development trend for the plasmonic nanolasers. This review can provide useful guide for the research of plasmonic nanolasers.
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Zhao Qing, Huang Xiaoping, Lin En, et al. Advances of plasmonic nanolasers[J]. Opto-Electronic Engineering, 2017, 44(2): 140-151. doi: 10.3969/j.issn.1003-501X.2017.02.002
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Figure 1.
The working principle of the nanowire cavity. (a) The diagram of the Fabry–Pérot nanocavity. (b) The distributions of the modes in nanowire dielectric waveguide laser and nanowire-metal coated cavity plasmonic laser[14].
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Figure 2.
Plasmonic-optical hybrid modes nanolaser. (a) Principle diagram and its scanning electron microscope (SEM) picture inserted. (b) Distribution of the mode between the nanowire and the metal layer[33].
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Figure 3.
The dispersion curves of the dielectric waveguide and Ag film coated-semiconductor waveguide with R=70 nm[39].
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Figure 4.
(a), (b) Schematic of the metal coated semiconductor heterogeneous plasmonic laser. (c)~(e) The modes simulation with three-dimensional structure[42].
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Figure 5.
Schematic of the light pumped metal-dielectric-metal subwavelength laser. (a) Diagram of the laser structure. (b) Numerical mode distribution[24].
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Figure 6.
(a) Principle diagram of the arrayed nanowires palsmonic laser. (b)~(d) Its SEM pictures[50].
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Figure 7.
The emission spectra of the plasmonic nanolaser (a1)~ (a4) with and (b1)~(b4) without metal-dielectric layers at room temperature. The pumping light intensity is from 2 mW/cm2 to 10 mW/cm2 with spacing of 2.5 mW/cm2 [50].
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Figure 8.
The interior intensity distributions of the nanowire cavity. (a) Single ZnO nanowire; (b) Single ZnO nanowire with SiO2 and Ag sandwiched structure[50].
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Figure 9.
(a) SEM picture, (b) pumping current and (c) electroluminescence spectra of the semiconductor heterogeneous laser[50].
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Figure 10.
Electroluminescence spots of the semiconductor heterogeneous laser. The pumping electric current is (a) 25 mA, (b) 30 mA, (c) 50 mA, (d) 80 mA, (e) 100 mA, and (f)
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Figure 11.
(a) The schematic of the focusing collimated microlens. (b) SEM picture of the nanowires. (c), (d) its working principle diagram[49].
