Room-Temperature Semiconductor Spaser Operating Near 1.5 um

摘要

Room temperature spasing of surface plasmon polaritons at 1.46 micrometer wavelength has been demonstrated by sandwiching a gold-film plasmonic waveguide between optically pumped InGaAs quantum-well gain media. The spaser exhibits gain narrowing, the expected transverse-magnetic polarization, and mirror feedback provided by cleaved facets in a 1-mm long cavity fabricated with a flip-chip approach. The 1.06-micrometer pump-threshold of approximately 60 kW/cm2 is in good agreement with calculations. The architecture is readily adaptable to all-electrical operation on an integrated microchip.