Theoretical Investigation of Metal Cladding for Nanowire and Cylindrical Micropost Lasers

We investigate the transverse modal properties of cylindrical subwavelength metal-clad nanowire and micropost lasers via rigorous theoretical waveguide analysis, including the effects of finite thickness metal cladding and gain in the core. The results of this analysis show that air-metal surface guided TM₀₁ and some hybrid surface guided modes suffer less loss but are less confined to the core, while core-metal surface guided modes are better confined to the core but suffer greater loss. An increase in the thickness of the metal cladding reduces the loss of the core-metal surface guided modes. The modal gain and confinement of the metal-clad cavity are compared to an unclad cavity.