Nanolasers Beat the Diffraction Limit

Recently, a number of groups have reported a dramatic reduction in the minimum size of lasers, achieved via the use of metals to form the laser's resonant cavity. These results dispel misconceptions that the minimum laser size is limited by diffraction and dielectric cavities. Furthermore, the use of metals allows an abundance of cavity designs, providing a rich research area, the possibility of new important applications for small highspeed lasers, and new flexible and efficient coherent light emitters.