Abstract
Abstract Plasmonics offers a unique opportunity to break the diffraction limit of light and bring photonic devices to the nanoscale. As the most prominent example, an integrated nanolaser is a key to truly nanoscale photonic circuits required for optical communication, sensing applications and high-density data storage. Here, we develop a concept of an electrically driven subwavelength surface-plasmon-polariton nanolaser, which is based on a novel amplification scheme, with all linear dimensions smaller than the operational free-space wavelength λ and a mode volume of under λ 3/30. The proposed pumping approach is based on a double-heterostructure tunneling Schottky barrier diode and gives the possibility to reduce the physical size of the device and ensure in-plane emission so that the nanolaser output can be naturally coupled to a plasmonic or nanophotonic waveguide circuitry. With the high energy efficiency (8% at 300 K and 37% at 150 K), the output power of up to 100 μW and the ability to operate at room temperature, the proposed surface plasmon polariton nanolaser opens up new avenues in diverse application areas, ranging from ultrawideband optical communication on a chip to low-power nonlinear photonics, coherent nanospectroscopy, and single-molecule biosensing.
Highlights
Nanophotonics is ubiquitous in many applications ranging from optical interconnects and sensing to high-density data storage and information processing [1,2,3,4,5,6]
With the high energy efficiency (8% at 300 K and 37% at 150 K), the output power of up to 100 μW and the ability to operate at room temperature, the proposed surface plasmon polariton nanolaser opens up new avenues in diverse application areas, ranging from ultrawideband optical communication on a chip to low-power nonlinear
The proposed amplification scheme based on the Au/n+InAs0.4P0.6/In0.72Ga0.28As/p+-Al0.29In0.71As double-heterostructure tunneling Schottky barrier diode is shown in Figure 1
Summary
Nanophotonics is ubiquitous in many applications ranging from optical interconnects and sensing to high-density data storage and information processing [1,2,3,4,5,6]. The plasmonic approach offers an opportunity to deal with photonic signals at the nanoscale via coupling to the freeelectron oscillations in a metal It can provide ultracompact components for optical interconnects such as modulators, photodetectors, waveguides and incoherent and coherent nanoscale optical sources [7,8,9,10,11,12,13]. The implementation of the latter is a great challenge since a significant amount of the surface plasmon field is concentrated in the metal that results in high Joule losses. An electrical pumping scheme is undeniably more desired and must be developed for practical application of plasmonic components [25, 26, 29, 30]
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