Spaser Explained

A spaser or plasmonic laser is a type of laser which aims to confine light at a subwavelength scale far below Rayleigh's diffraction limit of light, by storing some of the light energy in electron oscillations called surface plasmon polaritons.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] The phenomenon was first described by David J. Bergman and Mark Stockman in 2003.[6] The word spaser is an acronym for "surface plasmon amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The first such devices were announced in 2009 by three groups: a 44-nanometer-diameter nanoparticle with a gold core surrounded by a dyed silica gain medium created by researchers from Purdue, Norfolk State and Cornell universities,[7] a nanowire on a silver screen by a Berkeley group,[1] and a semiconductor layer of 90 nm surrounded by silver pumped electrically by groups at the Eindhoven University of Technology and at Arizona State University.[4] While the Purdue-Norfolk State-Cornell team demonstrated the confined plasmonic mode, the Berkeley team and the Eindhoven-Arizona State team demonstrated lasing in the so-called plasmonic gap mode. In 2018, a team from Northwestern University demonstrated a tunable nanolaser that can preserve its high mode quality by exploiting hybrid quadrupole plasmons as an optical feedback mechanism.[8]

The spaser is a proposed nanoscale source of optical fields that is being investigated in a number of leading laboratories around the world. Spasers could find a wide range of applications, including nanoscale lithography, fabrication of ultra-fast photonic nano circuits, single-molecule biochemical sensing, and microscopy.[5]

From Nature Photonics:[9]

Study of the quantum mechanical model of the spaser suggests that it should be possible to manufacture a spasing device analogous in function to the MOSFET transistor,[10] but this has not yet been experimentally verified.

See also

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. Oulton . Rupert F. . Sorger . Volker J. . Zentgraf . Thomas . Ma . Ren-Min . Gladden . Christopher . Dai . Lun . Bartal . Guy . Zhang . Xiang . 3 . Plasmon lasers at deep subwavelength scale . Nature . 461 . 7264 . 2009 . 629–632 . 0028-0836 . 10.1038/nature08364 . 19718019 . 2009Natur.461..629O. 10044/1/19116 . 912028 . free .
  2. Ma . Ren-Min . Oulton . Rupert F. . Sorger . Volker J. . Bartal . Guy . Zhang . Xiang . 3 . Room-temperature sub-diffraction-limited plasmon laser by total internal reflection . Nature Materials . 10 . 2 . 2010 . 110–113 . 1476-1122 . 10.1038/nmat2919 . 21170028 . 2011NatMa..10..110M. 1004.4227 . 10624501 .
  3. Noginov . M. A. . Zhu . G. . Belgrave . A. M. . Bakker . R. . Shalaev . V. M. . Narimanov . E. E. . Stout . S. . Herz . E. . Suteewong . T. . Wiesner . U. . 3 . Demonstration of a spaser-based nanolaser . Nature . 460 . 7259 . 2009 . 1110–1112 . 0028-0836 . 10.1038/nature08318 . 19684572 . 2009Natur.460.1110N. 4363687 .
  4. Hill . Martin . Marell . Milan . Leong . Eunice . Smalbrugge . Barry . Zhu . Youcai . Sun . Minghua . Van Veldhoven . Peter J. . Geluk . Erik J.. Karouta . Fouad . Oei . Yok . Noetzel . Richard . Ning . Cun-Zheng . Smit . Meint K. . 3 . Lasing in metal-insulator-metal sub-wavelength plasmonic waveguides . Optics Express . 17 . 13 . 2009 . 11107–11112 . 10.1364/OE.17.011107. 19550510 . 2009OExpr..1711107H . free .
  5. Pawan . Kumar . V.K. . Tripathi . C.S . Liu . A surface plasmon laser . J. Appl. Phys. . 104 . 3 . 033306–033306–4 . 2008 . 10.1063/1.2952018. 2008JAP...104c3306K .
  6. Surface Plasmon Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation: Quantum Generation of Coherent Surface Plasmons in Nanosystems . David J. . Bergman . Mark I. . Stockman . Phys. Rev. Lett. . 90 . 2 . 027402 . 2003 . 2003PhRvL..90b7402B . 10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.027402 . 12570577. 10798864 .
  7. News: The Smallest Laser Ever Made . Katherine . Bourzac . MIT Technology Review . August 17, 2009.
  8. Wang . D. . Bourgeois . M. . Lee . W. . Li . R. . Trivedi . D. J. . Knudson . M. P. . Wang . W. . Schatz . G. C. . Odom . T. W. . 3 . Stretchable Nanolasing from Hybrid Quadrupole Plasmons . Nano Letters . 18 . 7 . 2018 . 4549–4555 . 10.1021/acs.nanolett.8b01774 . 29912567 . 2018NanoL..18.4549W . 1594600 . 49302957 .
  9. Stockman. Mark I.. Spasers explained. Nature Photonics. 2. 6. June 2008. 327–329. 1749-4885. 10.1038/nphoton.2008.85. 2008NaPho...2..327S.
  10. Stockman. Mark I. . The spaser as a nanoscale quantum generator and ultrafast amplifier. Journal of Optics. 12. 2. 2010. 024004. 2040-8978. 10.1088/2040-8978/12/2/024004 . 0908.3559. 2010JOpt...12b4004S . 2089181 .

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Spaser".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.