Plasmonic-photonic crystal coupled nanolaser

TL;DR

This paper introduces a hybrid nanolaser combining photonic crystal cavities with plasmonic nano-antennas, demonstrating a novel fabrication method that enables precise, reproducible hybrid structures with potential for advanced nanophotonic devices.

Contribution

It presents a new hybrid photonic-plasmonic nanolaser design and a multi-step electron-beam lithography fabrication process for accurate antenna positioning.

Findings

Successful demonstration of a hybrid nanolaser with coherent mode coupling

Development of a robust, fully top-down fabrication method

Potential for new hybrid nanophotonic device applications

Abstract

We propose and demonstrate a hybrid photonic-plasmonic nanolaser that combines the light harvesting features of a dielectric photonic crystal cavity with the extraordinary confining properties of an optical nano-antenna. In that purpose, we developed a novel fabrication method based on multi-step electron-beam lithography. We show that it enables the robust and reproducible production of hybrid structures, using fully top down approach to accurately position the antenna. Coherent coupling of the photonic and plasmonic modes is highlighted and opens up a broad range of new hybrid nanophotonic devices.