Metal Quenching Of Radiative Emission In Metal-Clad Nanolasers

Nanolasers made from III-V active materials and metal-clad cavities have attracted research interest because of the small volume possible with metal nanocavities.1 Proposed applications include intrachip optical interconnects and optical sensors. The metal-clad nanocavities are one of several cavity approaches being studied, and differ from dielectric and semiconductor nanocavities in their high optical loss coefficients. Despite high absorption loss that increases with decreasing cavity size, several reports of lasing have been made.2,3 Clear trends exist, however, that the temperature at which lasing can be achieved decreases with the metal nanocavity volume. At least part of the temperature limit is due directly to the optical absorption of the metal walls of the nanocavity. In this talk we present a second mechanism that is highly deleterious to lasing in metal clad nanocavities, and analyze recent reported results of emission properties in a metal-clad nanocavity. The second mechanism is metal quenching of the radiative emission of the gain material, which is separate from the optical absorption of the cavity mode by the metal walls. Metal quenching occurs instead from the gain materials is nonradiative energy transfer between the gain\u27s near-field and metal walls.4,5 © 2012 IEEE