2012 12th IEEE International Conference on Nanotechnology (IEEE-NANO)

The International Conference Centre Birmingham

20-23 August 20112, Birmingham, United Kingdom

Invited talk: Laser science in a nanoscopic gap

Rupert Oulton

Imperial College London

Abstract: Lasers have overcome numerous technological limitations in the 50 years since their first

demonstration to become faster, brighter and smaller; however, scaling their size beyond the

diffraction limit of light has only recently been achieved. Metal-based lasers can now create and

sustain coherent light well below the diffraction limit, by generating and amplifying Surface Plasmon

Polaritons, collective electron oscillations at metal-dielectric interfaces. In this talk, I will discuss our

approach to constructing "plasmonic" lasers using semiconductor materials and outline some

potential applications. Such devices could be the most efficient and compact method of delivering

optical energy to the nanoscale. There are two benefits: firstly, the efficiently generated (focused)

coherent laser field can be extremely intense; and secondly, vacuum fluctuations within the laser

cavity are considerably stronger than in free space. Consequently, plasmonic lasers have the unique

ability to drastically enhance both coherent and incoherent light-matter interactions bringing

fundamentally new capabilities to bio-sensing, data storage, photolithography and optical

communications. While there is a great deal of research to do on plasmonic laser systems, this talk

highlights the feasibility of nano-scale light sources and the potential to do laser science at the

nanoscale.

978-1-4673-2200-31121$31.00 ©2012 IEEE