High-Performance Plasmonic Nanolasers with a Nanotrench Defect Cavity for Sensing Applications

Recent developments in small footprint plasmonic nanolasers show promise for active optical sensing with potential applications in various fields, including real-time and label-free biochemical sensing, and gas detection. In this study, we demonstrate a novel hybrid plasmonic crystal nanolaser that features a ZnO nanowire placed on Al grating surfaces with a nanotrench defect nanocavity. The lasing action of gain-assisted defect nanocavity overcomes the ohmic loss parasitically in the plasmonic nanostructures. Therefore, the plasmonic nanolaser exhibits an extremely small mode volume, a narrow linewidth Δλ, and a high Purcell factor that can facilitate the strong interaction between light and matter. This can be used as a refractive index sensor and is highly sensitive to local changes in the refractive indices of ambient materials. By careful design, the near-ultraviolet nanolaser sensors have significant sensing performances of glucose solutions, revealing a high sensitivity of 249 nm/RIU and high resolution, with a figure of merit of 1132, at the resonant wavelength of 373 nm.