Plasmonic nanolaser for intracavity spectroscopy and sensorics

P Melentiev,I A Nechepurenko,A P Vinogradov,A Afanasiev,A A Zyablovsky,A Gritchenko,I Filippov,V Balykin,E Ryzhova,A Kalmykov,A S Baburin,A V Dorofeenko,E S Andrianov,I Ryzhikov,I A Rodionov,A A Lisyansky

doi:10.1063/1.5003655

Abstract

We demonstrate intracavity plasmonic laser spectroscopy using a plasmonic laser created from a periodically perforated silver film with a liquid gain medium. An active zone of the laser is formed by a highly elongated spot of pumping. This results in a significantly more efficient diffusive mixing of dye molecules, which suppresses the effect of their bleaching, and in the ability to reduce the volume of the gain medium to as little as 400 nl. We use this design for a stable plasmonic laser in multiple measurements and demonstrate that it is highly effective as a spaser spectroscopy sensor for intracavity detection of an absorptive dye at 0.07 ppm. This work provides an opportunity to develop applications of intracavity plasmonic laser spectroscopy in biological label detection and other fields.

Highlights

(Received 6 September 2017; accepted 3 November 2017; published online 21 November 2017)
We demonstrate intracavity plasmonic laser spectroscopy using a plasmonic laser created from a periodically perforated silver film with a liquid gain medium
An active zone of the laser is formed by a highly elongated spot of pumping. This results in a significantly more efficient diffusive mixing of dye molecules, which suppresses the effect of their bleaching, and in the ability to reduce the volume of the gain medium to as little as 400 nl. We use this design for a stable plasmonic laser in multiple measurements and demonstrate that it is highly effective as a spaser spectroscopy sensor for intracavity detection of an absorptive dye at 0.07 ppm

Summary

Introduction

(Received 6 September 2017; accepted 3 November 2017; published online 21 November 2017) We demonstrate intracavity plasmonic laser spectroscopy using a plasmonic laser created from a periodically perforated silver film with a liquid gain medium. We use this design for a stable plasmonic laser in multiple measurements and demonstrate that it is highly effective as a spaser spectroscopy sensor for intracavity detection of an absorptive dye at 0.07 ppm.

Results

Conclusion