Plasmonic nanolasers: fundamental properties and applications

Plasmonic nanolasers are a new class of coherent emitters where surface plasmons are amplified by stimulated emission in a plasmonic nanocavity. In contrast to lasers, the physical size and mode volume of plasmonic nanolasers can shrink beyond the optical diffraction limit, and can be operated with faster speed and lower power consumption. It was initially proposed by Bergman and Stockman in 2003, and first experimentally demonstrated in 2009. Here we summarize our studies on the fundamental properties and applications of plasmonic nanolasers in recent years, including dark emission characterization, scaling laws, quantum efficiency, quantum threshold, gain and loss optimization, low loss plasmonic materials, sensing, and eigenmode engineering.