The authors have demonstrated a surface plasmon device composed of a resonant optical antenna integrated on the facet of a commercial diode laser, termed a plasmonic laser antenna. This device generates enhanced and spatially confined optical near fields. Spot sizes of a few tens of nanometers have been measured at a wavelength ～0.8 μm. This device can be implemented in a wide variety of semiconductor lasers emitting in spectral regions ranging from the visible to the far infrared, including quantum cascade lasers. It is potentially useful in many applications including near-field optical microscopes, optical data storage, and heat-assisted magnetic recording.
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