Periodic and aperiodic plasmon lattice lasers

Motivated by seminal proposals for surface plasmon amplification by stimulated emission, we conduct experiments on 2D plasmonic particle arrays in waveguiding layers that provide gain. We find that purely periodic plasmonic particle systems provide lasing characteristics similar to DFB lasers, yet on basis of a quite different underlying band structure. Using a newly developed spectrally-resolved Fourier microscope we perform "high-NA band structure microscopy" and find that the strong and resonant scattering by plasmon particles markedly modify stop gap widths and band anti-crossing topology. These plasmon lasers are exceptionally robust against disorder: lasing persists even when removing over 98% of particles from a square lattice and shifting them by as much as a quarter of the periodicity. We quantify the transition from DFB to random lasing by analyzing laser output in terms of intensity statistics and real-space autocorrelations using tools borrowed from speckle analysis. Plasmon particle systems in waveguiding layers are an ideal platform to study lasing in purely periodic systems, completely disordered systems and systems with correlated disorder. As point in case, our latest result map lasing as function of spatial correlation order parameter in a suite of quasiperiodic, aperiodic and random systems, ranging from Fibonacci to Thue-Morse and Rudin-Shapiro lattices.