Surface Plasmonic and Nanowire Nanolasers

Cun-Zheng Ning
Professor of Electrical Engineering, Arizona State University
Center for Nanophotonics-Arizona Institute of NanoElectronics (AINE)
Center of Solid State Electronics Research (CSSER)

Friday, May 7, 2009 at 11:30am
Engr IV Room 57-124

Abstract
The rapid progress of nanoscale science and technology challenges the optoelectronics community to develop ever smaller lasers and other optoelectronic devices compatible with technological trend in size reduction. This has led to the lasing demonstration of a single semiconductor nanowire of ~ 100 nanometers in diameter and a few microns in length, representing one of the smallest lasers. The question of ultimate challenge to the community is: can one make a laser that is smaller than half-wavelength in all 3 dimensions? To answer this and related questions, I will demonstrate in my talk many features of nanowires that make them unique candidate as nanolasers including smallest size, strong waveguiding, large confinement factor, and world-record wavelength tunability of ~200 nm. To further reduce the dimension of nanowire lasers, we will show how integration of semiconductors with metallic structures can reduce the size of laser waveguide. We will show that a proper design of a metal coated semiconductor nanowire can achieve lasing threshold despite significant metal loss. Recent experiments on such metal-coated semiconductor wire/pillar structures will be presented, showing examples of smallest lasers ever made and strong evidence of surface-plasmonic lasing.

Biography
Dr. Cun-Zheng Ning obtained his PhD in Physics from University of Stuttgart, Germany. He was a Research Assistant Professor at University of Arizona till 1997 when he joined NASA Ames Research Center as a Senior Scientist and later as Nanophotonics Group leader and Nanotechnology task manager at NASA Ames Center for Nanotechnology till 2006. He was a ISSP Visiting Professor at University of Tokyo in 2006. He joined Arizona State University in 2006 as Professor of Electrical Engineering and Affiliate Professor of Physics and Materials.

Dr. Ning's research areas have included laser physics, geometric phase in lasers, stochastic resonances, semiconductor lasers, and optoelectronics for the last 20 years. During last 6 years, his group has been involved in semiconductor nanowire growth, characterization, modeling and device fabrication, and more recently in plasmonic nanolasers. He has published over 130 scientific papers and given many conference presentations including 80 invited talks and Colloquia or Seminars. He has served many international conference as Chair or Committee member including CLEO, IQEC,SPIE Photonics West, OSA annual meetings. He was Associate Editor of IEEE J. Quantum Electronics (2001-2003) and a special topic editor for IEEE J. Special. Topics in Quantum Electron., J. Opt. Soc. Am., Optics Express, etc. For his research at NASA, he has won several NASA and NASA contractors' awards, including NASA Group Achievment (1999) award and CSS Technical Excellence Award (2003). He was recently awarded the IEEE/LEOS Distinguished Lecturer for 2007/2008 and 2008/2009 terms.