Half-wave plasmonic nanolasers near the localization limit

Abstract

Miniaturized lasers with sub-micron dimensions are of broad interest for optical science, on-chip communication, sensing, and biomedical barcoding. Recently, lowest-order half-wave lasing was demonstrated in semiconductor-on-metal cavities by operating away from the highly dispersive and absorptive surface-plasmon resonance. Here, we demonstrate half-wave-mode lasing near the surface-plasmon resonance at ~630 nm using high-gain indium phosphide (InP) nanoparticles on ultrasmooth gold substrates. The smallest lasing particle, estimated from simulated dispersion curves to have a length of ~115 nm and height of ~100 nm, emitted at 730 nm in air, representing one of the smallest reported active laser cavities. Linewidth and threshold pump fluence generally decreased as the lasing wavelength shifted farther from the plasmon resonance. In larger particles with lengths of 280~480 nm, we observed lasing attributable to second- and third-order plasmonic modes with progressively narrower linewidths. These results extend half-wave dipolar lasing toward near-infrared and visible wavelengths and further push laser miniaturization toward the plasmonic localization limit.