Plasmon nanolaser: current state and prospects

In the last two decades, extensive research has been devoted to the development of new ultra-small lasers. The greatest progress has been made with semiconductor lasers. A fundamentally new approach to the miniaturization of lasers is based on using plasmon instead of photon fields. This review is devoted to an interesting and rapidly developing field, the physics of plasmon lasers. This area of research is the synthesis of plasmon and laser physics, which arose as a response to the need to reduce losses in plasmonic devices. Electrodynamics, materials science, laser physics, and other aspects of the subject under consideration are considered. A comparison of photon and plasmon nanolasers is given. The fundamental and technological problems of plasmon nanolasers are discussed. Their numerous applications are also considered.