Near-Infrared Lasing at 1 μm from a Dilute-Nitride-Based Multishell Nanowire.

A coherent photon source emitting at near-infrared (NIR) wavelengths is at the heart of a wide variety of applications ranging from telecommunications and optical gas sensing to biological imaging and metrology. NIR-emitting semiconductor nanowires (NWs), acting both as a miniaturized optical resonator and as a photonic gain medium, are among the best-suited nanomaterials to achieve such goals. In this study, we demonstrate the NIR lasing at 1 μm from GaAs/GaNAs/GaAs core/shell/cap dilute nitride nanowires with only 2.5% nitrogen. The achieved lasing is characterized by an S-shape pump-power dependence and narrowing of the emission line width. Through examining the lasing performance from a set of different single NWs, a threshold gain, gth, of 4100-4800 cm-1, was derived with a spontaneous emission coupling factor, β, up to 0.8, which demonstrates the great potential of such nanophotonic material. The lasing mode was found to arise from the fundamental HE11a mode of the Fabry-Perot cavity from a single NW, exhibiting optical polarization along the NW axis. Based on temperature dependence of the lasing emission, a high characteristic temperature, T0, of 160 (±10) K is estimated. Our results, therefore, demonstrate a promising alternative route to achieve room-temperature NIR NW lasers thanks to the excellent alloy tunability and superior optical performance of such dilute nitride materials.