Metal-optic and Plasmonic Semiconductor-based Nanolasers
Abstract
Over the past few decades, semiconductor lasers have relentlessly followed the path towards miniaturization. Smaller lasers are more energy efficient, are cheaper to make, and open up new applications in sensing and displays, among many other things. Yet, up until recently there was a fundamental problem with making lasers smaller: purely semiconductor lasers couldn't be made smaller than the di diffraction limit of light. In recent years, however, metal-based lasers have been demonstrated in the nanoscale that have shattered the di diffraction limit. As optical materials, metals can be used to either re reflect light (metal-optics) or convert light to electrical currents (plasmonics). In both cases metals have provided ways to squeeze light beyond the di diffraction limit. In this dissertation I experimentally demonstrated one nanolaser based on plasmonic transduction and another laser based on metal-optic re reflection. To create coherent plasmons, I designed a nanolaser based on a plasmonic bandgap defect state inside a surface plasmonic crystal. In a one-dimensional periodic semiconductor beam I was able to confine surface plasmons by interrupting the periodicity of the crystal. These confined surface plasmons then underwent laser oscillations in e effective mode volumes as small as 0.007 cubic wavelengths. At this electromagnetic volume, energy was squeezed 10 times smaller than those possible in similar photonic crystals that do not utilize metal. This demonstration should pave the way for achieving engineered nanolasers with deepsubwavelength mode volumes and enable plasmonic crystals to become attractive platforms for designing plasmons. After achieving large reductions in electromagnetic mode volumes, I switched to a metaloptics- based nanolaser design to further reduce the physical volumes of small light sources.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 07, 2012
- Accession Number
- ADA561671
Entities
People
- Amit Lakhani
- Eli Yablonovitch
- Ming C. Wu
- Xiang Zhang
Organizations
- University of California, Berkeley