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Ultrafast plasmonic nanowire lasers near the surface plasmon frequency

Nature Physics volume 10, pages 870–876 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

Light–matter interactions are inherently slow as the wavelengths of optical and electronic states differ greatly. Surface plasmon polaritons — electromagnetic excitations at metal–dielectric interfaces — have generated significant interest because their spatial scale is decoupled from the vacuum wavelength, promising accelerated light–matter interactions. Although recent reports suggest the possibility of accelerated dynamics in surface plasmon lasers, this remains to be verified. Here, we report the observation of pulses shorter than 800 fs from hybrid plasmonic zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowire lasers. Operating at room temperature, ZnO excitons lie near the surface plasmon frequency in such silver-based plasmonic lasers, leading to accelerated spontaneous recombination, gain switching and gain recovery compared with conventional ZnO nanowire lasers. Surprisingly, the laser dynamics can be as fast as gain thermalization in ZnO, which precludes lasing in the thinnest nanowires (diameter less than 120 nm). The capability to combine surface plasmon localization with ultrafast amplification provides the means for generating extremely intense optical fields, with applications in sensing, nonlinear optical switching, as well as in the physics of strong-field phenomena.

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Figure 1: Sketch of the ZnO plasmonic nanowire laser geometry and its calculated transverse mode characteristics.
Figure 2: Comparison of measured plasmonic and photonic nanowire laser emission.
Figure 3: Numerical simulations of the temporal response under double-pump excitation.
Figure 4: Measured temporal response from plasmonic and photonic nanowires under double-pump excitation.
Figure 5: Measured spectra versus double-pump pulse delay for the plasmonic nanowire laser and its Fourier transform.
Figure 6: Comparison of measured characteristic response times in plasmonic and photonic lasers.

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Acknowledgements

This work was sponsored by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), The Leverhulme Trust as well as the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (FOR 1616). R.F.O. is supported by an EPSRC Fellowship (EP/I004343/1) and Marie Curie IRG (PIRG08-GA-2010-277080).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Imperial College London, Prince Consort Road London SW7 2AZ, UK,

    Themistoklis P. H. Sidiropoulos, Ortwin Hess, Stefan A. Maier & Rupert F. Oulton

  2. Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Max-Wien-Platz 1 D-07743 Jena, Germany,

    Robert Röder, Sebastian Geburt & Carsten Ronning

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  1. Themistoklis P. H. Sidiropoulos
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  2. Robert Röder
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  7. Rupert F. Oulton
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Contributions

The nanowires where grown by R.R. and S.G.; the simulations were performed by T.P.H.S. and R.F.O.; the experimental measurements were conducted by T.P.H.S.; results were discussed and interpreted by all authors; the manuscript was written by T.P.H.S. and R.F.O. with feedback from all co-authors.

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Correspondence to Themistoklis P. H. Sidiropoulos or Rupert F. Oulton.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Sidiropoulos, T., Röder, R., Geburt, S. et al. Ultrafast plasmonic nanowire lasers near the surface plasmon frequency. Nature Phys 10, 870–876 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3103

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