The mission of the Resonant Nanophotonics Group is to develop a new branch of nanophotonics based on such unconventional subwavelength “point”-scatterers coupled together to realize functional optical devices. Such devices will be below 0.1 μm³ in size and provide strong light-matter interaction. We aim to utilize the strong light-matter interaction for broadband quantum optics. Can we interrogate a single molecule with just a single quantum of light, or conversely collect photons emitted by a single emitter with unit probability?

We pursue this quest using resonant scattering antennas based on plasmonic and metamaterial scatterers to bridge the size-mismatch between free photons, and the cross sections of quantum systems. Such broadband quantum optics with resonant scattering systems poses many new theoretical and experimental challenges.
A practical challenge is how to probe optical structures that are far below the diffraction limit in size. We therefore develop new scanning probe technologies to manipulate single emitters with nanometer precision, and to interrogate how sub-wavelength clusters of scatterers scatter. We aim to transfer our expertise to applications by active research into antenna-substrates for on-chip light sources and nano-lasers, and for enhanced single molecule microscopy techniques used in biophysics.