Plasmon-exciton-polariton lasing

Metallic nanostructures provide a toolkit for the generation of coherent light below the diffraction limit. Plasmonic-based lasing relies on the population inversion of emitters (such as organic fluorophores) along with feedback provided by plasmonic resonances. In this regime, known as weak light–matter coupling, the radiative characteristics of the system can be described by the Purcell effect. Strong light–matter coupling between the molecular excitons and electromagnetic field generated by the plasmonic structures leads to the formation of hybrid quasi-particles known as plasmon-exciton-polaritons (PEPs). Due to the bosonic character of these quasi-particles, exciton-polariton condensation can lead to laser-like emission at much lower threshold powers than in conventional photon lasers. Here, we observe PEP lasing through a dark plasmonic mode in an array of metallic nanoparticles with a low threshold in an optically pumped organic system. Interestingly, the threshold power of the lasing is reduced by increasing the degree of light–matter coupling in spite of the degradation of the quantum efficiency of the active material, highlighting the ultrafast dynamic responsible for the lasing, i.e., stimulated scattering. These results demonstrate a unique room-temperature platform for exploring the physics of exciton-polaritons in an open-cavity architecture and pave the road toward the integration of this on-chip lasing device with the current photonics and active metamaterial planar technologies.