TY - JOUR

T1 - Time-Resolved Second-Order Coherence Characterization of Broadband Metallic Nanolasers

AU - George, Agnes

AU - Bruhacs, Andrew

AU - Aadhi, A.

AU - Hayenga, William E.

AU - Ostic, Rachel

AU - Whitby, Erin

AU - Kues, Michael

AU - Wang, Zhiming M.

AU - Reimer, Christian

AU - Khajavikhan, Mercedeh

AU - Morandotti, Roberto

N1 - Funding Information: A.G. and A.B. contributed equally to this work. R.M. gratefully acknowledges financial support from NSERC through the Discovery, Synergy and Brockhouse funding, as well as from the Canada Research Chair program in Canada, and from MESI in Quebec through the PSO and PRIMA programs. M.Kh. acknowledges support from DARPA (D18AP00058, HR00111820042, HR00111820038), Office of Naval Research (N00014‐16‐1‐2640, N00014‐19‐1‐2052, N00014‐20‐1‐2522, N00014‐20‐1‐2789), Army Research Office (W911NF‐16‐1‐0013, W911NF‐17‐1‐0481), National Science Foundation (ECCS 2000538, ECCS 2011171, CBET1805200), Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550‐14‐1‐0037, FA9550‐20‐1‐0322, FA9550‐21‐1‐0202), and US‐Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF 2016381). A.B. acknowledges Le Fonds Quebecois de la Recherche sur la Nature et les Technologies, through the Post‐Doctoral Fellowship Program (File 206944). M.Ku. acknowledges funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (PQuMAL). R.O. and E.W. both acknowledge the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) through an Undergraduate Student Research Award (USRA). R.M. is associated to UESTC as an adjoint faculty.

PY - 2021/11/10

Y1 - 2021/11/10

N2 - High-bandwidth metallic coaxial nanolasers are of high interest to investigate laser physics such as thresholdless coherence transitions, and have a large variety of promising applications enabled by their ultrasmall size and large spectral bandwidth. Optical coherence properties are commonly characterized in Hanbury-Brown and Twiss experiments. However, those are difficult to perform in broadband lasers when the coherence time is an order of magnitude shorter than the temporal resolution of the single-photon detectors, thus requiring significant spectral filtering. This paper demonstrates a new approach in investigating the temporal dynamics of the photon statistics associated with the nanolaser emission, obtained without the requirement of spectral filtering. While optically pumping the nanolasers with nanosecond pulses, time-resolved second-order coherence properties are evaluated over the time duration of the pump pulse. Coherence transitions from thermal emission to lasing are observed in the gathered time-resolved photon statistics, linked to the temporal change in optical power of the nanosecond pump pulses. As nanolasers show better performance for the pulsed pumping scheme, the temporal envelope modulation of these pulses results in varying degrees of coherence within the nanolaser pulse envelope. This approach can also be readily applied to characterize a large variety of broadband lasers.

AB - High-bandwidth metallic coaxial nanolasers are of high interest to investigate laser physics such as thresholdless coherence transitions, and have a large variety of promising applications enabled by their ultrasmall size and large spectral bandwidth. Optical coherence properties are commonly characterized in Hanbury-Brown and Twiss experiments. However, those are difficult to perform in broadband lasers when the coherence time is an order of magnitude shorter than the temporal resolution of the single-photon detectors, thus requiring significant spectral filtering. This paper demonstrates a new approach in investigating the temporal dynamics of the photon statistics associated with the nanolaser emission, obtained without the requirement of spectral filtering. While optically pumping the nanolasers with nanosecond pulses, time-resolved second-order coherence properties are evaluated over the time duration of the pump pulse. Coherence transitions from thermal emission to lasing are observed in the gathered time-resolved photon statistics, linked to the temporal change in optical power of the nanosecond pump pulses. As nanolasers show better performance for the pulsed pumping scheme, the temporal envelope modulation of these pulses results in varying degrees of coherence within the nanolaser pulse envelope. This approach can also be readily applied to characterize a large variety of broadband lasers.

KW - coherence

KW - thresholdless coaxial nanolasers

KW - time-resolved single-photon statistics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85116833935&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/lpor.202000593

DO - 10.1002/lpor.202000593

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85116833935

VL - 15

JO - Laser and Photonics Reviews

JF - Laser and Photonics Reviews

SN - 1863-8880

IS - 11

M1 - 2000593

ER -