This book reviews recent advances in one of the most prominent fields of physics. The optics of random media displays a rich variety of effects, and some of these effects are hardly intuitive. Localization of various sorts of optical excitations occur and recur in a wide gamut of disordered systems, such as inhomogeneous media, nanocomposite materials, layered structures, metal films and metal-dielectric composites. The contributors to the book are world best experts in the optics of random media; they provide a state-of-the-art review of recent developments in the field including nonlinear optical and magneto-optical properties, Raman and hyper-Raman scattering, laser action, plasmon excitation and localized giant fields, imaging and spectroscopy of random media.

Klappentext

The contributors to the book are world best experts in the optics of random media; they provide a state-of-the-art review of recent developments in the field including nonlinear optical and magneto-optical properties, Raman and hyper-Raman scattering, laser action, plasmon excitation and localized giant fields, imaging and spectroscopy of random media

Inhalt

Nanocomposite Materials for Nonlinear Optics Based on Local Field Effects.- Response of Composite Media Made of Weakly Nonlinear Constituents.- Third-Order Nonlinear Properties of Au Clusters Containing Dielectric Thin Films.- Linear and Nonlinear Optical Properties of Quasi-Periodic One-Dimensional Structures.- Optical Nonlinearities of Fractal Composites.- Nonlinear Optical Effects and Selective Photomodification of Colloidal Silver Aggregates.- Fractal-Microcavity Composites: Giant Optical Responses.- Theory of Nonlinear Optical Responses in Metal-Dielectric Composites.- Surface-Plasmon-Enhanced Nonlinearities in Percolating 2-D Metal-Dielectric Films: Calculation of the Localized Giant Field and Their Observation in SNOM.- SERS and the Single Molecule.- Nonlinear Raman Probe of Single Molecules Attached to Colloidal Silver and Gold Clusters.- Electromagnetic Response of Ferromagnetic Cermet: Superparamagnetic Transition.- Manipulating Light with a Magnetic Field.- Random Lasers with Coherent Feedback.- Localization Phenomena in Elastic Surface Plasmon Polariton Scattering.- Multiple-Scattering Phenomena in the Second-Harmonic Generation of Light Reflected from and Transmitted Through Randomly Rough Metal Surfaces.