ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines a range of techniques that enable the design, optimization, and simulation of nanoplasmonic lasers while tracking the example of a stopped light laser to outline concepts. The geometry of the perhaps simplest types of nanoplasmonic lasers is planar waveguide structures. The modes of structures depend strongly on the width and material of each layer and can be calculated using the transfer matrix method, a linear, frequency-domain analysis that shall be used to design and optimize structures before simulation in time domain. The chapter explains theoretical basis for describing the optical response of both metals and semiconductor gain media, involving a combination of a Drude–Lorentz model and a multilevel Maxwell–Bloch theory, respectively, in the harmonic oscillator form. The Drude–Lorentz model describes noble metals well, and one may explain the origins of each of the terms with a simple model for a free electron gas.
