Plasmon lasers at deep subwavelength scale
AssigneeThe Regents of the University of California
InventorsXiang Zhang, Volker Jendrik Sorger, Rupert Francis Maximillian Oulton, Ren-Min Ma
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Abstract
Hybrid plasmonic waveguides are described that employ a high-gain semiconductor nanostructure functioning as a gain medium that is separated from a metal substrate surface by a nanoscale thickness thick low-index gap. The waveguides are capable of efficient generation of sub-wavelength high intensity light and have the potential for large modulation bandwidth >1 THz.
Claims29
A plasmon laser source, comprising:
- a metal substrate;
- a semiconductor material;
- the semiconductor material being separated from a surface of the metal substrate by a low-refraction index gap;
- and
- an electron pumping means;
- wherein the electron pumping means is configured to excite an electron carrier population to generate a plasmonic laser emission from the low-refraction index gap;
- wherein the plasmonic laser emission is confined by a plasmonic mode having a mode size smaller than a diffraction limit of light in at least one dimension.
A method for generating a plasmonic laser emission, the plasmonic laser emission having a mode size smaller than the diffraction limit of light, the method comprising the steps of:
- generating an electrical bias across a metal substrate and a semiconductor material;
- the semiconductor material being separated from a surface of the metal substrate by a low-refraction index gap;
- exciting an electron carrier population within the semiconductor material;
- and
- generating the plasmonic emission from the low-refraction index gap.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.