Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Spasers explained

Nature Photonics volume 2, pages 327–329 (2008)Cite this article

The spaser is a proposed nanoscale source of optical fields that is being investigated in a number of leading laboratories around the world. If realized, spasers could find a wide range of applications, including nanoscale lithography, probing and microscopy.

Nano-optics is now undergoing a period of explosive growth where new ideas, developments and impressive results appear literally on a daily basis. It is concerned with the science of concentrating optical energy into regions with subwavelength dimensions (typically tens of nanometres). Yet despite all this progress, there is still the need for a coherent, intense, ultrafast (with pulse durations down to a few femtoseconds), source of optical energy concentrated to nanoscale areas, similar to the laser but on a much smaller scale. In 2003, David Bergman and I proposed such a source that is based on surface plasmons — the so-called spaser1 (short for surface plasmon amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) — and researchers are now working to develop and exploit this idea. For example, Nikolay Zheludev and colleagues present their latest ideas regarding spasers on page 351 of this issue2.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Get just this article for as long as you need it

$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: The spasing mechanism.
Figure 2: The electric field provided by the spaser described in ref. 1.

References

  1. Bergman, D. J. & Stockman, M. I. Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 027402 (2003).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  2. Zheludev, N., Prosvirnin, S., Papasimakis, N. & Fedotov, V. Nature Photon. 2, 351–354 (2008).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  3. Novotny, L. & Hecht, B. Principles of Nano-Optics (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, New York, 2006).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  4. Hirsch, L. R. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 100, 13549–13554 (2003).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  5. Averitt, R. D., Sarkar, D. & Halas, N. J. Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 4217–4220 (1997).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Klimov, V. I. et al. Science 290, 314–317 (2000).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  7. Klimov, V. I. et al. Nature 447, 441–446 (2007).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  8. Schaller, R. D., Pietryga, J. M. & Klimov, V. I. Nano Lett. 7, 3469–3476 (2007).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  9. Seidel, J., Grafstroem, S. & Eng, L. Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 177401 (2005).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  10. Tredicucci, A. et al. Opt. Mater. 17, 211–217 (2001).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  11. Noginov, M. A. et al. Appl. Phys. B 86, 455–460 (2007).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mark I. Stockman is in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia 30302, USA. mstockman@gsu.edu,

    Mark I. Stockman

Authors
  1. Mark I. Stockman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Stockman, M. Spasers explained. Nature Photon 2, 327–329 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2008.85

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2008.85

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing