Research activities NanoOptics

Research highlights 2005-2010

• Propagation of nanoconfined light
• Slow light and enhanced light-matter interaction
• The structure of light at the nanoscale

Future directions

We will exploit the efficient coupling of light to the nanoscale in combination with slow light to induce a variety of nonlinear phenomena. One of the key goals will be to induce ultrafast switching of light or plasmons and the generation of solitons while minimizing the required nonlinear interaction length.
In addition, we will use various routes to create parametric downconversion in plasmonic systems in order to obtain entangled photon or plasmon pairs guided in a nanoconfined mode. This would provide a crucial ingredient to quantum circuitry on the nanoscale.
We will explore whether we can use the wide variety of optical singularities at the nanoscale to generate new nonlinear phenomena and to explore new routes for quantum optics at the nanoscale. We will continue to expand our capacity to visualize light field at the nanoscale. We will use our ability to “see” the magnetic component of the light for the investigation of metamaterials that derive their function from the geometrically induced magnetic response. We aim to use the detailed information to optimize metamaterial design. Of particular interest will be the magnetic and electric interaction between the building blocks and the behaviour of so-called “optical spin” lattices. We will explore the degree of similarity between the optical behaviour of these lattices in the presence of disorder and phase transitions of two-dimensional spin lattices.

Knowledge transfer to industry and society

We have an active collaboration with FeI Company to improve the optical properties of gold nanostructures deposited with electron-beam assisted deposition. This would enable the fabrication of plasmonic structures beyond the scope of conventional top-down fabrication methods.
The visualization of the magnetic field was performed in collaboration with LioniX Inc. with whom we also investigate of commercial devices for integrated optics with near-field microscopy. In the MeMPHIS consortium we collaborate with various industrial parties, a.o., Philips and river Diagnostics, to increase the efficiency of vCSeLs in order to enable multi-dimensional raman imaging.