Metallic Coaxial Nanolasers

TL;DR

This paper reviews metallic coaxial nanolasers, highlighting their potential for subwavelength light sources with high modulation bandwidth, thresholdless operation, and applications in nanoscale optical circuits.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the physics, design, and applications of coaxial nanolasers, emphasizing their advantages and future prospects in nanophotonics.

Findings

Support ultrasmall cavity modes

Large mode-emitter overlap

Potential for thresholdless operation

Abstract

The last two decades have witnessed tremendous advancements in the area of nanophotonics and plasmonics. Undoubtedly, the introduction of metallic structures has opened a path towards light confinement and manipulation at the subwavelength scale { a regime that was previously thought to be out of reach in optics. Of central importance is to devise efficient light sources to power up the future nanoscale optical circuits. Coaxial resonators can provide a platform to implement such subwavelength sources. They support ultrasmall cavity modes and offer large mode-emitter overlap as well as multifold scalability. Given their large modulation bandwidth, they hold promise for high speed optical interconnects { where they can be used for light generation and modulation simultaneously. In addition, the possibility of thresholdless operation in such devices may have implications in developing the next generation of efficient lighting systems. In this review article, the physics and applications of coaxial nanolasers will be discussed.