Metal-oxide-semiconductor plasmonic nanorod lasers (Conference Presentation)

Scaling down semiconductor lasers in all three dimensions hold the key to the developments of compact, low-threshold, and ultrafast coherent light sources, as well as photonic integrated circuits. However, the minimum size of conventional semiconductor lasers utilizing dielectric cavity resonators (photonic cavities) is constrained to the diffraction limit. In the past few years, it has been experimentally demonstrated that the use of plasmonic cavities based on metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) structures can break this limit. In this presentation, I will report on the recent progress of plasmonic nanolasers using MOS structures. In particular, by using alloy-composition-varied indium gallium nitride/gallium nitride (InGaN/GaN) core–shell nanorods as the nanolaser gain media in the full visible spectrum, we are able to demonstrate full-color nanolasers that can be operated with ultralow CW lasing thresholds and single lasing modes. Full-color lasing in these subdiffraction plasmonic cavities is achieved via a unique autotuning mechanism based on a property of weak size dependence inherent in plasmonic nanolasers. As for choice of metals in the MOS structures, epitaxial Ag films and giant colloidal Ag crystals have been shown by us to be the superior constituent materials for plasmonic cavities due to their low plasmonic losses in the visible spectral range. Recently, we have also succeeded in developing InGaN/GaN nanorod array plasmonic lasers based on a metal (Au)-all-around MOS structure, which can be fabricated easily on a wafer scale. I will present the latest results in these developments.