Amplification of long-range surface plasmons by a dipolar gain medium
Amplification of long-range surface plasmons by a dipolar gain medium
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DOI：
10.1038/nphoton.2010.37
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发表时间：
2010-06-01
期刊：
影响因子：
35
通讯作者：
Berini, Pierre
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
De Leon, Israel;Berini, Pierre
表面等离激元极化激元是金属表面与光波耦合的集体电子振荡，它展现出在众多科学领域具有重要价值的独特性质。然而，这些波的固有传播损耗给许多潜在应用带来了根本性问题。为克服这一缺陷，研究人员探索了通过表面等离激元极化激元放大来补偿损耗的可能性。在此，我们利用由对称金属条波导所支持的长程表面等离激元极化激元，首次直接测量了传播等离激元的增益，该波导将溶液中光泵浦的染料分子作为增益介质。所测模式功率增益为8.55分贝/毫米。此外，还表明这类新型放大器得益于进入放大模式的自发辐射减少，有可能实现低噪声光放大。
Surface plasmon-polaritions, collective electron oscillations coupled to light waves at the surface of a metal, show unique properties that are valuable in a broad range of scientific fields. However, the intrinsic propagation loss of these waves poses a fundamental problem to many potential applications. To overcome this drawback, researchers have explored the possibility of loss compensation by means of surface plasmon-polarition amplification. Here we provide the first direct measurement of gain in propagating plasmons using the long-range surface plasmon-polariton supported by a symmetric metal stripe waveguide that incorporates optically pumped dye molecules in solution as the gain medium. The measured mode power gain is 8.55 dB mm(-1). Furthermore, it is shown that this new class of amplifier benefits from reduced spontaneous emission into the amplified mode, potentially leading to low-noise optical amplification.