Theoretical study on the lasing plasmon of a split ring for label-free detection of single molecules and single nanoparticles

This paper reports the plasmonic lasing of a split ring filled with gain material in water. The lasing mode (1500 nm) is far from the pump mode (980 nm), which can depress the detection noise from the pump light. The laser intensities of the two modes simultaneously increase by more than 10³ in amplitude, which can intensify the absorption efficiency of the pumping light and enhance the plasmonic lasing. The plasmonic lasing is a sensitive sensor. When a single protein nanoparticle (n = 1.5, r = 1.25 nm) is trapped in the gap of the split ring, the lasing spectrum moves by 0.031 nm, which is much larger than the detection limit of 10^-5 nm. Moreover, the lasing intensity is also very sensitive to the trapped nanoparticle. It reduces to less than 1/600 when a protein nanoparticle (n = 1.5, r = 1.25 nm) is trapped in the gap.