Abstract
In 2003 Bergman and Stockman introduced the spaser, a quantum amplifier of surface plasmons by stimulated emission of radiation1. They argued that by exploiting a metal/dielectric composite medium it should be possible to construct a nanodevice, where a strong coherent field is built up in a spatial region much smaller than the wavelength1,2. V-shaped metallic structures, combined with semiconductor quantum dots, were discussed as a possible realization of the spaser1. Here we introduce a further development of the spaser concept. We show that by combining the metamaterial and spaser ideas one can create a narrow-diversion coherent source of electromagnetic radiation that is fuelled by plasmonic oscillations. We argue that a two-dimensional array of a certain class of plasmonic resonators supporting coherent current excitations with high quality factor can act as a planar source of spatially and temporally coherent radiation, which we term a ‘lasing spaser.’
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bergman, D. J. & Stockman, M. I. Surface plasmon amplification by stimulated emission of radiation: Quantum generation of coherent surface plasmons in nanosystems. Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 027402 (2003).
Bergman, D. J. & Stockman, M. I. Can we make a nanoscopic laser? Laser Phys. 14, 409–411 (2004).
Fedotov, V. A., Rose, M., Prosvirnin, S. L., Papasimakis, N. & Zheludev, N. I. Sharp trapped-mode resonances in planar metamaterials with a broken structural symmetry. Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 147401 (2007).
Carrere, H., Marie, X., Lombez, L. & Amand, T. Optical gain of InGaAsN/InP quantum wells for laser applications. Appl. Phys. Lett. 89, 181115 (2006).
Troccoli, M., Gmachl, C., Capasso, F., Sivco, D. L. & Cho, A. Y. Mid-infrared (λ ≈ 7.4 µm) quantum cascade laser amplifier for high power single-mode emission and improved beam quality. Appl. Phys. Lett. 80, 4103–4105 (2002).
Gordon, J. A. & Ziolkowski, R. W. The design and simulated performance of a coated nano-particle laser. Opt. Express 15, 2622–2653 (2007).
Sarychev, A. K. & Tartakovsky, G. Magnetic plasmonic metamaterials in actively pumped host medium and plasmonic nanolaser. Phys. Rev. B 75, 085436 (2007).
Demokritov, S. O. et al. Bose–Einstein condensation of quasi‐equilibrium magnons at room temperature under pumping. Nature 443, 430–433 (2006).
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Counsil (EPSRC) (UK).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
The idea of the lasing spaser belongs to N.I.Z. who also wrote the paper. S.L.P. and N.P. performed infrared and near-infrared numerical experiments correspondingly. V.A.F. contributed to the analysis of data.
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zheludev, N., Prosvirnin, S., Papasimakis, N. et al. Lasing spaser. Nature Photon 2, 351–354 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2008.82
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2008.82
This article is cited by
-
Ultrafast photoluminescence and multiscale light amplification in nanoplasmonic cavity glass
Nature Communications (2024)
-
Plasmonic nano-laser at 675 nm for biomedical applications
Journal of Optics (2023)
-
Plasmonic lasing in highly lossy nanocylinder arrays under optical pumping
Applied Physics B (2023)
-
Inverse-cavity structure for low-threshold miniature lasers
Scientific Reports (2022)
-
Natural weak value amplification in Fano resonance and giant Faraday rotation in magneto-plasmonic crystal
Scientific Reports (2020)