This book gives a readable introduction to the important, rapidly developing, field of nanophotonics. It provides a quick understanding of the basic elements of the field, allowing students and newcomers to progress rapidly to the frontiers of their interests. Topics include: The basic mathematical techniques needed for the study of the materials of nanophotonic technology; photonic crystals and their applications as laser resonators, waveguides, and circuits of waveguides; the application of photonic crystals technology in the design of optical diodes and transistors; the basic properties needed for the design and understanding of new types of engineered materials known as metamaterials; and a consideration of how and why these engineered materials have been formulated in the lab, as well as their applications as negative refractive index materials, as perfect lens, as cloaking devices, and their effects on Cherenkov and other types of radiation. Additionally, the book introduces the new field of plasmonics and reviews its important features. The role of plasmon-polaritons in the scattering and transmission of light by rough surfaces and the enhanced transmission of light by plasmon-polariton supporting surfaces is addressed. The important problems of subwavelength resolution are treated with discussions of applications in a number of scientific fields. The basic principles of near-field optical microscopy are presented with a number of important applications. The basics of atomic cavity physics, photonic entanglement and its relation to some of the basic properties of quantum computing, and the physics associated with the study of optical lattices are presented.

Autorentext

Prof. Arthur R. McGurn, CPhys, FInstP, is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, a Fellow of the Electromagnetics Academy, and an Outstanding Referee for the journals of the American Physical Society. He received the Ph.D. in Physics in 1975 from the University of California, Santa Barbara, followed by postdoctoral studies at Temple University, Michigan State University, and George Washington University (NASA Langley Research Center). The research interests of Prof. McGurn have included works in the theory of: magnetism in disorder materials, electron conductivity, the properties of phonons, ferroelectrics and their nonlinear dynamics, Anderson localization, amorphous materials, the scattering of light from disordered media and rough surfaces, the properties of speckle correlations of light, quantum optics, nonlinear optics, the dynamical properties of nonlinear systems, photonic crystals, and meta-materials. He has approximately 150 publications spread amongst these various topics. Since 1981 he has taught physics at Western Michigan University where he is currently a Professor of Physics and a WMU Distinguished Faculty Scholar. A number of Ph.D. students have graduated from Western Michigan University under his supervision.

Inhalt

General Introduction and overview of the text: Qualitative remarks about the systems and effects found in nanophotonics and their important technological applications.
Mathematical Preliminaries:

a. Treatments of the effective dielectric properties of composites.

b. Treatments of the properties of periodic systems including Block waves, band structure, Wannier functions, and tight binding models.

c. Discussions of the finite difference time domain method and the method of moments.

d. Discussions of forces on mano-particles and atoms arising from gradients in the electromagnetic field intensities.

e. Summary of the basic properties of nonlinear optics: Kerr effect and second harmonic generation. f. General treatment of the properties of soliton modes and of the generation of second harmonics of radiation.

Photonic crystals:

a. Treatment of photonic crystal band structure and its effect on the decay rate of excited atoms.

b. Discussion of photonic crystal cavities, lasers, and nano-cavity lasers.

c. Discussions of photonic crystal waveguides and their properties including both linear and nonlinear optical materials. i. Treatments of in-channel and off-channel impurities in waveguides

ii. Treatments of soliton modes in photonic crystal waveguides

d. Treatment of nonlinear effect of photonic crystal diodes and transistors.

e. Discussions of photonic crystal circuits and possible applications.

Metamaterials: a. Discussions of index of refraction and the ideas of negative index materials.

b. Discussions of how artificial nano-features such as split ring resonators function and how they can be used to design metamaterials with any desired refractive properties.

c. Treatment of the perfect lens.

d. Treatment of electromagnetic cloaking.

e. Treatment of Cherenkov and other radiative interactions and effects in negative index materials. f. Treatment of linear and nonlinear modes in metamaterials.