Journal
NATURE PHOTONICS
Volume 2, Issue 9, Pages 564-570Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2008.152
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR MURI on Plasmonics)
- Harvard Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centre ( NSEC)
- National Science Foundation [ECS-0335765]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Surface plasmons offer the exciting possibility of improving the functionality of optical devices through the subwavelength manipulation of light. We show that surface plasmons can be used to shape the beams of edge- emitting semiconductor lasers and greatly reduce their large intrinsic beam divergence. Using quantum cascade lasers as a model system, we show that by defining a metallic subwavelength slit and a grating on their facet, a small beam divergence in the laser polarization direction can be achieved. Divergence angles as small as 2.4 degrees are obtained, representing a reduction in beam spread by a factor of 25 compared with the original 9.9-mu m-wavelength laser used. Despite having a patterned facet, our collimated lasers do not suffer significant reductions in output power (similar to 100 mW at room temperature). Plasmonic collimation provides a means of efficiently coupling the output of a variety of lasers into optical fibres and waveguides, or to collimate them for applications such as free-space communications, ranging and metrology.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available