title: Coherent Light Sources at the Nanoscale.
abstract: This review focuses on coherent light sources at the nanoscale, and specifically on lasers exploiting plasmonic cavities that can beat the diffraction limit of light. Conventional lasers exhibit coherent, intense, and directional emission with cavity sizes much larger than their operating wavelength. Plasmon lasers show ultrasmall mode confinement, support strong light-matter interactions, and represent a class of devices with extremely small sizes. We discuss the differences between plasmon lasers and traditional ones, and we highlight advances in directionality and tunability through innovative cavity designs and new materials. Challenges and future prospects are also discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208; email: todom@northwestern.edu.
authors.forename: Ankun
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Graduate Program in Applied Physics, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208.
authors.forename: Danqing
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Graduate Program in Applied Physics, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208.
authors.forename: Weijia
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208; email: todom@northwestern.edu.|Graduate Program in Applied Physics, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208.|Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208.
authors.forename: Teri W
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Odom
keywords: directionality; laser; plasmon nanolaser; tunability