Plasmonic and metallic cavity nanolasers: A new paradigm for semiconductor lasers?

In this paper, a summary overview of mostly authors' efforts since 2006 in developing the metallic cavity nanolasers is presented. It will start with a brief overview of short history and a background introduction to the plasmon-photon interactions, showing how such interactions might lead to a nanolaser of ever shrinking size. Recent progress in theoretical and experimental studies will then be presented, including the demonstration of the first nanolaser with size below the diffraction limit our recent efforts in raising the operating temperature of such nanolasers, and the eventual realization of the first continuous-wave operation of subwavelength size nanolasers at room temperature under electrical injection.