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A spaser or plasmonic laser is a type of
laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The firs ...
which aims to confine light at a
subwavelength In physics, the wavelength is the spatial period of a periodic wave—the distance over which the wave's shape repeats. It is the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same phase on the wave, such as two adjacent crests, tr ...
scale far below Rayleigh's diffraction limit of light, by storing some of the light energy in electron oscillations called surface plasmon polaritons. The phenomenon was first described by David J. Bergman and Mark Stockman in 2003. The word ''spaser'' is an acronym for " surface plasmon amplification by
stimulated emission Stimulated emission is the process by which an incoming photon of a specific frequency can interact with an excited atomic electron (or other excited molecular state), causing it to drop to a lower energy level. The liberated energy transfers to th ...
of radiation". The first such devices were announced in 2009 by three groups: a 44-
nanometer 330px, Different lengths as in respect to the molecular scale. The nanometre (international spelling as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; SI symbol: nm) or nanometer (American and British English spelling differences#-re, ...
-diameter nanoparticle with a
gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...
core surrounded by a dyed
silica Silicon dioxide, also known as silica, is an oxide of silicon with the chemical formula , most commonly found in nature as quartz and in various living organisms. In many parts of the world, silica is the major constituent of sand. Silica is o ...
gain medium created by researchers from Purdue, Norfolk State and Cornell universities, a nanowire on a silver screen by a Berkeley group, 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. 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. The spaser is a proposed nanoscale source of
optical field An electromagnetic field (also EM field or EMF) is a classical (i.e. non-quantum) field produced by (stationary or moving) electric charges. It is the field described by classical electrodynamics (a classical field theory) and is the classical ...
s 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 Photonics is a branch of optics that involves the application of generation, detection, and manipulation of light in form of photons through emission, transmission, modulation, signal processing, switching, amplification, and sensing. Though ...
nano circuits, single-molecule biochemical sensing, and microscopy. From ''Nature Photonics'': 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 The metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET) is a type of field-effect transistor (FET), most commonly fabricated by the controlled oxidation of silicon. It has an insulated gate, the voltage of which d ...
transistor, but this has not yet been experimentally verified.


See also

* List of plasma physics articles * Nanolaser *
Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy or surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is a surface-sensitive technique that enhances Raman scattering by molecules adsorbed on rough metal surfaces or by nanostructures such as plasmonic-magnetic silic ...


References


Further reading

* {{cite journal, last1=Galanzha, first1=Ekaterina I., last2=Weingold, first2=Robert, last3=Nedosekin, first3=Dmitry A., last4=Sarimollaoglu, first4=Mustafa, last5=Nolan, first5=Jacqueline, last6=Harrington, first6=Walter, last7=Kuchyanov, first7=Alexander S., last8=Parkhomenko, first8=Roman G., last9=Watanabe, first9=Fumiya, last10=Nima, first10=Zeid, last11=Biris, first11=Alexandru S., last12=Plekhanov, first12=Alexander I., last13=Stockman, first13=Mark I., last14=Zharov, first14=Vladimir P. , display-authors=3, title=Spaser as a biological probe, journal=Nature Communications, volume=8, issue=1, year=2017, page=15528, issn=2041-1723, doi=10.1038/ncomms15528, pmid=28593987, pmc=5472166, bibcode=2017NatCo...815528G, doi-access=free Condensed matter physics Laser types Nanoelectronics Plasmonics