Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) are crucial for the development of next generation information and communication technologies. However, the ohmic losses inherent to all plasmonic devices seriously limit their practical application in on-chip photonic communications. Here, loss compensation of SPPs and their application in photonic logic processing was demonstrated in rationally designed organic/silver nanowire heterostructures. The heterostructures were synthesized by inserting silver nanowires (AgNWs) into crystalline organic microwires, which served as a microscale optical gain medium. These heterostructures with large organic/metal interfacial areas ensured the efficient energy transfer from excitons to SPPs. Gain for subwavelength SPPs in the heterostructure was achieved through stimulated emission of strongly confined SPPs. Furthermore, cascade gain was performed to realize basic nanoscale photonic devices, such as Boolean logic units. The results would pave an alternative avenue to incorporating SPP-enhanced devices into hybrid photonic circuitry.

表面等离子体激元极化子（SPPs）对于下一代信息和通信技术的发展至关重要。但是，所有等离子设备固有的欧姆损耗严重限制了它们在片上光子通信中的实际应用。在这里，通过合理设计的有机/银纳米线异质结构证明了SPP的损耗补偿及其在光子逻辑处理中的应用。异质结构是通过将银纳米线（AgNW）插入结晶有机微线中合成的，该有机微线用作微米级光学增益介质。这些具有大的有机/金属界面面积的异质结构确保了从激子到SPP的有效能量转移。异质结构中亚波长SPP的增益是通过强约束SPP的激发发射获得的。此外，进行级联增益以实现基本的纳米级光子器件，例如布尔逻辑单元。结果将为将增强SPP的设备整合到混合光子电路中铺平道路。