Room-Temperature Ultraviolet Nanowire Nanolasers

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 292; no. 5523; pp. 1897 - 1899
• Main Authors: Huang, Michael H., Mao, Samuel, Feick, Henning, Yan, Haoquan, Wu, Yiying, Kind, Hannes, Weber, Eicke, Russo, Richard, Yang, Peidong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Society for the Advancement of Science 08.06.2001; American Association for the Advancement of Science; The American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subjects: Climate; Emission spectra; Exact sciences and technology; Excitons; Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications); Information Storage; Lasers; Lasing; Light; Luminescence; Nanotechnology; Nanowires; Optics; Physics; Pumps; Room temperature; Sapphire; Semiconductor lasers; laser diodes; Semiconductors; Temperature; Thin films; Ultraviolet radiation; Zinc oxides; Semiconductor lasers; Emission spectra; Ambient temperature; Ultraviolet laser; Surface emitting lasers; Binary compounds; XRD; Wide band gap semiconductors; Nanowires; Experimental study; Luminescence decay
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.1060367

Room-temperature ultraviolet lasing in semiconductor nanowire arrays has been demonstrated. The self-organized, oriented zinc oxide nanowires grown on sapphire substrates were synthesized with a simple vapor transport and condensation process. These wide band-gap semiconductor nanowires form natural laser cavities with diameters varying from 20 to 150 nanometers and lengths up to 10 micrometers. Under optical excitation, surface-emitting lasing action was observed at 385 nanometers, with an emission linewidth less than 0.3 nanometer. The chemical flexibility and the one-dimensionality of the nanowires make them ideal miniaturized laser light sources. These short-wavelength nanolasers could have myriad applications, including optical computing, information storage, and microanalysis.