Ultra-thin plasmonic random lasers

An ultrathin plasmonic random laser is fabricated by a simple lift off process, which consists of a free-standing polymer membrane embedded with silver nanoparticles. Low threshold random lasing is observed when the 200-nm-thick membrane device is optically pumped, due to the strong plasmonic feedback and high-quality waveguide confinement provided by the silver nanoparticles and the polymer membrane, respectively. The free-standing polymer membrane is very flexible and transplantable, which can be attached to an optical fiber end face to achieve random lasing. This fabrication technique provides a promising way to realize plasmonic random lasing on surfaces with arbitrary shapes. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America