Self-polarized spin-nanolasers

Besides adding a new functionality to conventional lasers, spin-polarized lasers can, potentially, offer lower threshold currents and reach higher emission intensities. However, to achieve spin-polarized lasing emission a material should possess a slow spin relaxation and a high propensity to be injected with spin-polarized currents. These are stringent requirements that, so far, have limited the choice of candidate materials for spin-lasers. Here we show that these requirements can be relaxed by using a new self-polarized spin mechanism. Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles are coupled to GaN nanorods to form an energy-band structure that induces the selective charge transfer of electrons with opposite spins. In turn, this selection mechanism generates the population imbalance between spin-up and spin-down electrons in the emitter's energy levels without an external bias. Using this principle, we demonstrate laser emission from GaN nanorods with spin polarization up to 28.2% at room temperature under a low magnetic field of 0.35 T. As the spin-selection mechanism relies entirely on the relative energy-band alignment between the iron oxide nanoparticles and the emitter and requires neither optical pumping with circularly polarized light nor electrical pumping with magnetic electrodes, potentially a wide range of semiconductors can be used as spin-nanolasers.