High-Yield Plasmonic Nanolasers with Superior Stability for Sensing in Aqueous Solution

Plasmonic nanolasers with strong field confinement beyond the diffraction limit are an emergent tool for various applications, ranging from on-chip optical interconnectors to biomedical sensing and imaging. However, despite the rapidly advanced research in plasmonic nanolasers, there is no study on their stability and yield yet. Here, we systematically study the stability and yield of plasmonic nanolasers and reveal that surface passivation is crucial for them to operate in biocompatible aqueous solution with high stability and yield. We further demonstrate passivated plasmonic nanolasers as refractive index sensors. The figure of merit of intensity sensing is ∼8000, which is about 40 times higher than a state-of-the-art surface plasmon resonance sensor. Our results hold promise for practical applications of plasmonic nanolasers in super-resolution imaging, ultrasensitive sensing, and detection.