Spaser based on Fano resonance in a rod and concentric square ring-disk

nanostructure
Y. Y. Huo, T. Q. Jia, Y. Zhang, H. Zhao, S. A. Zhang, D. H. Feng, and Z. R. Sun
Citation: Applied Physics Letters 104, 113104 (2014); doi: 10.1063/1.4868867
View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4868867
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APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 104, 113104 (2014)

Spaser based on Fano resonance in a rod and concentric square ring-disk

nanostructure
Y. Y. Huo,1 T. Q. Jia,1,a) Y. Zhang,2 H. Zhao,1 S. A. Zhang,1 D. H. Feng,1 and Z. R. Sun1
1

State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, Department of Physics, East China Normal University,
Shanghai 200062, Peoples Republic of China
2
Department of Physics, Tianjin Polytechnic University, Tianjin 300387, Peoples Republic of China

(Received 19 January 2014; accepted 6 March 2014; published online 17 March 2014)
This paper reports a spaser based on Fano resonance of a plasmonic nanostructure consisting of a
rod and concentric square ring-disk structure coated with a layer of gain media. The amplification
of the dark quadrupolar mode at the Fano resonance wavelength causes the spaser with a high
Purcell factor of 3.24  107, a high signal to noise ratio of 4.4  106, and a lower threshold of
0.02086. These significant optical properties are attributed to the greatly enhanced spontaneous
emission and depressed radiation loss supported by the strong localized dark mode at the Fano
C 2014 AIP Publishing LLC. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4868867]
resonance wavelength. V
Spaser (surface plasmon amplification by stimulated
emission of radiation) can generate coherent nanoscale field,
which is a key device for the development of nanoscience
and nanotechnology. The concept of spaser was proposed by
Bergman and Stockman in 2003,1 but it was experimentally
realized until 2009.24 Several approaches have been raised
to achieve spasers, involving the design of all kinds of cavity
structures2,411 and nanoparticles with very small physical
size.3,12 For the cavities, they were usually designed to generate propagating surface plasmons (PSPs) feedback for
spasing, such as Fabry-Perot cavity, distributed feedback
cavity, whispering gallery cavity, and total internal reflection
cavity.2,411 However, for spasers based on nanoparticles,
the optical feedback arises from the localized surface plasmons (LSPs) resonances. They can support ultrasmall mode
volume Veff and ultrahigh Purcell Factor Fp because of their
ultrasmall physical size.3,12
The spasers mentioned above are all based on the bright
mode, which has a relatively high radiation loss. Theoretical
results proposed that there were two ways to realize spaser:
The amplification of bright mode and dark mode.1 The dark
mode can support very strong localized field,13 which can
modify the laser action by enhancing the spontaneous emission of the gain media.4,8
Fano resonance arises from the constructive and destructive interference of a broad bright mode and a narrow dark
mode in metallic nanostructures. It supports high-Q resonance and strong localized optical fields at the dark
mode,14,15 and has many applications in sensors, lasing,
switching, nonlinear, and slow light devices.16 The representative Fano resonance structures are nanorod dimers,
dolmen nanostructures, nanoparticles oligomer, and ringdisk nanocavities.1521 In the ring-disk nanostructures, the
Fano resonance wavelength, line-width, and localized field
intensity can be controlled by adjusting the gap between the
ring and disk.21 It indicates that the radiation loss can be
well controlled, which lays the foundation for realizing
spaser. Moreover, the founder of spaser, Mark Stockman,
proposed that Fano resonance holds promise for building up
a)

tqjia@phy.ecnu.edu.cn

0003-6951/2014/104(11)/113104/3/$30.00

a spaser.22 In this paper, we propose a metallic nanostructure

consisting of an outside rod and a concentric square ringdisk (CSRD) nanostructure, which is abbreviated as RCSRD.
The RCSRD nanostructure supports Fano resonance, and a
strong spaser is realized by coating a layer of gain media.
The active nanosystem based on RCSRD is schematically shown in Figure 1(a), which consists of an outer nanorod with length L0 420 nm, width w 60 nm, and a square
nanoring with outer side length L1 240 nm, and an inner
square nanodisk with side length L2 180 nm. The square
nanodisk and the nanoring are concentric with a gap
gi 10 nm. The gap between the outside nanorod and the
square nanoring is go 20 nm. In this paper, the nanoring
width is 20 nm, and the height of RCSRD nanostructure
keeps at 60 nm. The nanostructure is placed on a glass substrate with refractive index n0 1.5, and embedded in a
silica layer doped with gain media. For simplicity, we
assume that the refractive index of the gain layer is nl 1.5
 ik. k is gain coefficient, which is related to the amplification coefficient of light intensity via G 4pk/k.23 The

FIG. 1. (a) Sketch of the RCSRD coated with gain media and the incident
light. (b) The scattering and absorption spectra of RCSRD with no gain
media. (c) The induced surface charges on the top surface. (d) The electric
field amplitude in the middle section at the Fano resonance wavelength.

104, 113104-1

C 2014 AIP Publishing LLC

V

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113104-2

Huo et al.

permeability of silver is l 1, with the complex permittivity

sourced from Ref. 24. We use the finite element method
(COMSOL) adopting adaptive mesh to investigate the interaction of the surface plasmon of the RCSRD nanostructure
and the gain media. A plane wave irradiates down to the
RCSRD nanostructure, and the electric field is parallel to the
linked line of the centers of nanorod and CSRD, as shown in
Figure 1(a). For this polarization, this structure supports a
strong Fano resonance.
Figure 1(b) shows the scattering and absorption spectra
of the RCSRD with no gain media in the silica layer. There
is a narrow quadrupolar Fano resonance at 1579 nm, which
is caused by the interaction of the narrow dark quadrupolar
mode of the CSRD with the broad bright mode combined of
the primitive dipole resonance of the outer rod and the antibonding plasmon resonance of CSRD. The induced surface
charges on the top surfaces and the electric field amplitude
in the middle section at the Fano resonance wavelength are
shown in Figures 1(c) and 1(d), respectively. The maximum
electric field enhances up to 90 times in the gap of CSRD,
which is promising to provide effective feedback. Thus, it
can achieve spaser after considering gain medium.
The calculated scattering and absorption spectra for the
RCSRD with gain media are shown in Figure 2. It can be
seen that the line-widths of all the spectra are very sensitive
to the gain coefficient k. When k 0, the line-width of the
quadrupolar Fano resonance is 32 nm, and the absorption is
positive value. With k increasing, the line-widths decrease
rapidly, and the absorption becomes negative value, indicating that the metallic Ohmic loss has been compensated by
the gain media. When k 0.02086, the scatter peak value of
the quadrupolar Fano resonance reaches to 4.4  105, and the
line-width is significantly compressed to 0.027 nm. This k
value is called as the threshold kt for generating strong
amplification of surface plasmon at the Fano resonance. As k
increases to 0.024, the scattering intensity decreases and the
line-width increases greatly.
The amplification of surface plasmon at the Fano resonance is a result of the interaction among the incident light,

FIG. 2. (a)(c) The scattering and absorption spectra with different gain
coefficient k. (d) The scattering intensity at the Fano resonance wavelength
as a function of k.

Appl. Phys. Lett. 104, 113104 (2014)

optical gain media, and the RCSRD nanostructure.23,25 The

dark quadrupolar resonance of the CSRD is excited by the
bright dipole resonance of the rod irradiated by the external
incident light. The gain media provides energy for the quadrupolar resonance loss compensation and amplification by
the radiationless transitions. The quadrupolar mode further
enhances the transitions of the gain media. When the gain
coefficient reaches the threshold, the light amplification and
loss of the system keep a dynamic balance. Further increase
the value of k, it will break down the balance and so does the
spaser.23
Purcell factor Fp, mode volume Veff, quality factor Q,
and signal to noise ratio (SNR) are important parameters for
spaser.26 The mode volume is calculated using the formula:12
Vef f V erjErj2 d 3 r=maxerjErj2 , where er is
the dielectric constant at the position r, jErj2 is field intensity,
and V is a quantization volume including the resonator and the
radiation zone of the resonance mode of the RCSRD structure.
The Purcell factor is calculated with the formula:12,27
FP 3Qk=nef f 3 =4p2 Vef f , where k is the Fano resonant
wavelength, and neff 1.5 is the refractive index of the optical
gain media. The quality factor is estimated by Q k=Dk,
where Dk is the spectral line-width. SNR is defined as the ratio
of the scatter peak value of k 0 and k kt at the Fano resonance wavelength.26
The Purcell factor formula describes a two-level point
source situated within a cavity.27 This formula was widely
used to study the spaser based on gold nanorod, pillar nanocavity, symmetry-broken core-shell plasmonic nanocavity,
etc.5,8,12,28 Decker et al. calculated the Purcell factor using
emitted power with and without object in their experiments.29 The Purcell factor formula they used is same as we
used in this paper if the emission frequency is equal to the
plasmonic cavity mode. In this paper, the gain media is
assumed as a two-level source, and the RCSRD structure is a
plasmonic nanocavity. Therefore, it is suitable to calculate
Purcell factor with the formula.
Figure 3 depicts the wavelength dependence of Veff and
Fp for the dark quadrupolar resonance mode of the RCSRD
and the dipolar resonant mode of the single nanorod with
length of 420 nm. The mode volume of the RCSRD is Veff
1.34  104 (k/neff)3 m3 at the Fano resonant wavelength.

FIG. 3. The mode volume and Purcell factor as a function of resonance

wavelengths for the RCSRD (a), (b) and the single rod (c), (d).

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113104-3

Huo et al.

Appl. Phys. Lett. 104, 113104 (2014)

This work was supported by the National Natural Science

Foundation of China (11274116, 113740995, 11304224, and
51132004), Shanghai Science and Technology Commission
(11JC1403500 and 10XD1401800), National Special Science
Research Program of China (2010CB923203 and
2011CB808105), and the Open Fund of the State Key
Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics (Shanghai Institute of
Optics and Fine Mechanics).
1

FIG. 4. The scattering and absorption spectra of the dark mode (a) and the
bright mode (b) with gain coefficient k at their threshold, respectively.

The quality factor is Q 5.74  104 at the Fano resonance.

Therefore, a very high Purcell factor of 3.24  107 is
obtained due to such a small mode volume and high Q. For
the spaser based on the single nanorod, the effective mode
volume is Veff 1.02  104 (k/neff)3, which is only slightly
larger than that of RCSRD. However, the Purcell factor is
only 2.08  105 due to a lower Q 285, which caused by a
very high radiation loss of the dipolar mode of the single
nanorod. The threshold of the nanorod spaser is also very
high, kt 0.259, which is more than 12 times higher than
that of the RCSRD. The SNR of the RCSRD spaser is up to
4.4  106, which is 163 times higher than the single rod,
because the dipolar mode of the nanorod is suppressed at the
Fano resonance in the RCSRD spaser.15 Thus, if the Fano
plasmon nanostructures are used in spasers, Fp and SNR
could be enhanced significantly, the threshold can be
expected to be reduced lower. Because Fano nanostructures
can support a dark mode, which has a strong electromagnetic
confinement and a very small radiation loss.13
In order to further illustrate the advantage of the spasers
based on the Fano plasmon nanostructures, we compare the
dark quadrupolar mode supported by the RCSRD with no
glass substrate and the bright quadrupolar mode supported
by the CSRD, which can be excited by a plane wave irradiating in the horizontal direction E as shown in Figure 1(a).
Figure 4 shows the scattering and absorption spectra of the
dark mode and the bright mode when the gain coefficient
k kt, respectively. The Purcell factor Fp of the dark mode is
1.39  107, which is 11 times higher than that of the bright
mode. The SNR of the dark mode is 3.73  105; however,
the bright mode is only 231. These are because of the strong
localized field supported by dark mode that can enhance the
spontaneous emission and decrease the radiation loss.

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