High performance plasmonic random laser based on nanogaps in bimetallic porous nanowires

A plasmonic random laser is fabricated using gold-silver bimetallic porous nanowires with abundant nanogaps that provide strong feedback or gain channels for coherent lasing from dye molecules. The strong confinement of the nanogaps allows the bimetallic porous nanowire-based random laser, which is pumped by ns pulses, to operate with a very low threshold and extremely low concentrations of Rhodamine 6G (as low as 0.067 mM). This random laser can be used as a pump source for another coherent random laser based on oxazine. These results provide a basis for studies of coherent random lasing pumped by another random laser. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.