Abstract
The issue of an ultimate size limit of a surface plasmon polariton (SSP) nanolaser is investigated by a systematic simulation study. We consider a prototypic design of a metal-insulator-semiconductor multi-layer structure with finite, varying lateral sizes. Our focus is on the design of such lasers operating at room temperature under the electrical injection. We find that there is an interesting interplay between the facet loss and the SPP propagation loss and that such interplay leads to the existence of a minimum-threshold mode in each mode group. The red-shift of the minimum-threshold mode with the decrease of device thickness leads to a further reduction of threshold gain, making the threshold for the SPP nanolaser achievable for many semiconductors, even at room temperature. In addition, we find that the threshold can be further reduced by using thinner metal cladding without much exacerbated mode leakage. Finally, a specific design example is optimized using Al0.3Ga0.7As/GaAs/Al0.3Ga0.7As single quantum well sandwiched between silver layers, which has a physical volume of 1.5 × 10-4λ03, potentially the smallest semiconductor nanolasers designed or demonstrated so far.
Highlights
Metallic cavity nanolasers [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13] and spasers [14, 15] with ever shrinking cavity sizes down to tens of nanometers have attracted a great deal of attention recently due to progresses in the nano-fabrication technology and in the understanding of semiconductor-metal interactions at nanoscales
Several questions remain unanswered: Is it practically possible to operate a nanolaser or spaser near the surface plasmon polariton (SPP) resonance at room temperature under electrical injection? Can or to what extent the required laser threshold be further reduced through the realistic consideration and optimization? What is the ultimate, practically achievable smallest size of the SPP lasers or spasers, especially under the electrical injection? In order to answer such questions and to realize the electrical injection SPP lasing at room temperature, we carried out a systematic study of various loss mechanisms and focus on the design and optimization of the structure of a plasmonic nanolaser with the smallest possible sizes
Since we only study the possibility of SPP mode lasing in the cavity, the modes are always decaying in the x direction from the metal-semiconductor interface
Summary
Metallic cavity nanolasers [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13] and spasers [14, 15] with ever shrinking cavity sizes down to tens of nanometers have attracted a great deal of attention recently due to progresses in the nano-fabrication technology and in the understanding of semiconductor-metal interactions at nanoscales. In order to answer such questions and to realize the electrical injection SPP lasing at room temperature, we carried out a systematic study of various loss mechanisms and focus on the design and optimization of the structure of a plasmonic nanolaser with the smallest possible sizes Several questions remain unanswered: Is it practically possible to operate a nanolaser or spaser near the SPP resonance at room temperature under electrical injection? Can or to what extent the required laser threshold be further reduced through the realistic consideration and optimization? What is the ultimate, practically achievable smallest size of the SPP lasers or spasers, especially under the electrical injection? In order to answer such questions and to realize the electrical injection SPP lasing at room temperature, we carried out a systematic study of various loss mechanisms and focus on the design and optimization of the structure of a plasmonic nanolaser with the smallest possible sizes
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