ZnO Nanowires on Single-Crystalline Aluminum Film Coupled with an Insulating WO3 Interlayer Manifesting Low Threshold SPP Laser Operation

ZnO nanowire-based surface plasmon polariton (SPP) nanolasers with metal–insulator–semiconductor hierarchical nanostructures have emerged as potential candidates for integrated photonic applications. In the present study, we demonstrated an SPP nanolaser consisting of ZnO nanowires coupled with a single-crystalline aluminum (Al) film and a WO3 dielectric interlayer. High-quality ZnO nanowires were prepared using a vapor phase transport and condensation deposition process via catalyzed growth. Subsequently, prepared ZnO nanowires were transferred onto a single-crystalline Al film grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Meanwhile, a WO3 dielectric interlayer was deposited between the ZnO nanowires and Al film, via e-beam technique, to prevent the optical loss from dominating the metallic region. The metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) structured SPP laser, with an optimal WO3 insulating layer thickness of 3.6 nm, demonstrated an ultra-low threshold laser operation (lasing threshold of 0.79 MW cm−2). This threshold value was nearly eight times lower than that previously reported in similar ZnO/Al2O3/Al plasmonic lasers, which were ≈2.4 and ≈3 times suppressed compared to the SPP laser, with WO3 insulating layer thicknesses of 5 nm and 8 nm, respectively. Such suppression of the lasing threshold is attributed to the WO3 insulating layer, which mediated the strong confinement of the optical field in the subwavelength regime.