We propose the use of a structured planar mirror as the way to obtain the physical conditions for which the combination of an evanescent field and a surface plasmon potential would result in an atom-trap well located at $\sim 0.6\mu \mathrm{m}$ above the mirror’s surface. We present calculations from which we obtain a well depth slightly bigger than $7\mu \mathrm{K}$. The configuration and calculations we present are for a single trap, however, there would appear to be no restrictions to extend this idea to a two-dimensional matrixlike array of traps, hinting on the possibility for tailored design of latticelike trap structures.

We present an experimental analysis of the angular distribution of the emission of a random laser (RL) operating in the diffusive regime ($\sim 1\%$ volume fraction of scatterers). The RL ensemble was made of silica particles suspended in a 1:1 methanol:water matrix with Rhodamine 6G dye as the active medium. We found that, for specific pumping-energy-dependent scattering strength, the RL spectrum reached stable features that were angularly preserved. From the analysis, we propose that this defines a novel parametric condition that may well be the equivalent of the RL critical volume, as proposed by Letokhov.