Nanophotonics
Aim & scope
Nanophotonics is a topical and highly distinctive area of modern optics. It is a field that has exhibited phenomenal growth in recent years, at both the research and applications level, and which now accounts for much of the highest impact, most cutting edge research and development activity in optics. It is a highly interdisciplinary area whose subject provenance encompasses materials science including metamaterials, chemistry and physics (and some biology), alongside electrodynamics and optics – both linear and nonlinear, classical and quantum. Together with continued advances in optical and material fabrication, this confluence and fusion goes some way to explain the fervent interest and innovation that now characterizes the subject. The essence of nanophotonics is a focus on physical systems and optical interactions whose characteristics are substantially modified – in some cases almost entirely determined – by nanoscale features. Indeed, light and optical properties are widely involved throughout the field of nanotechnology.
Here, the character of optical propagation and measurement commonly involves an intricate interplay of structural, spectroscopic, electromagnetic, electronic and quantum optical features. In a sense, ‘nanophotonics’ is a term that subsumes ‘nano-optics’; both cover a common ground, but the former term is more often used in particular for systems and effects where quantum effects are manifest. Much of the active research either directly or indirectly concerns surfaces – for example nanofabricated surfaces and surface plasmonics, thin film optics, near-field interactions, evanescent waves and sub-wavelength aperture effects. Other kinds of response are manifest in supramolecular and polymeric systems, cavity nanophotonic structures and nano-antennas. The aim of this series is to produce a reliable resource that will become recognized as both comprehensive and definitive, spanning the field in topics that include theoretical foundations, mechanisms, optical techniques, characterization principles, novel fabrication and synthetic methods, calculational and modeling advances, devices, and applications. This whole area particularly needs advanced volumes that properly capture the principles and the real advances, in mature and reflective accounts that are true to the research forefront - yet without the hype that can be found in much of the ‘latest advance’ literature.
If you would like to discuss a book idea for this series, please contact Senior Acquisitions Editor Ana Claudia Garcia: [email protected](opens in new tab/window)
Audience
It is intended that these volumes, invited from well-respected authors, will attain a coherent level and approach, so that all volumes are equally accessible to readership from different areas of the subject base. Some contributions are authored; many are edited volumes.
Series Editor
AL
Akhlesh Lakhtakia
Professor
The Pennsylvania State University, United States
Read more about Akhlesh Lakhtakia