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Spaser action, loss compensation, and stability in plasmonic systems with gain
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia 30303, USA.
Physical Review Letters
|May 17, 2011
Summary
Achieving full loss compensation in plasmonic-gain metamaterials leads to instability and spaser generation. This phenomenon limits maximum gain achievable, with a universal criterion for instability provided.
Area of Science:
- Plasmonics
- Metamaterials
- Quantum optics
Background:
- Plasmonic-gain media offer unique light-matter interactions.
- Spaser generation relies on overcoming optical losses.
- Metamaterials enable novel optical properties.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify the conditions for spaser generation and loss compensation.
- To investigate the stability of dense resonant plasmonic-gain media.
- To establish a universal criterion for loss overcompensation instability.
Main Methods:
- Theoretical analysis of plasmonic-gain medium dynamics.
- Investigation of conditions for full loss compensation.
- Derivation of instability criteria.
Main Results:
- Spaser generation conditions are identical to full loss compensation.
- Attempting full or overcompensation of losses induces instability.
- Inversion is clamped, limiting maximum achievable loss compensation.
- A universal, geometry-independent criterion for loss overcompensation instability is derived.
Conclusions:
- Full loss compensation in plasmonic-gain metamaterials inherently leads to spaser instability.
- This instability provides a fundamental limit on achievable gain.
- The derived criterion offers a predictive tool for system design.
