Nederlandse Natuurkundige Vereniging

Location: Erice, Italy

Throughout the last decade, the field of optics and photonics has not only tremendouslybenefited from progress in nano-science and -fabrication but has in turn also become animportant driver and toolbox of nano-science and -fabrication. Important sub-fields suchas three-dimensional optical lithography and microscopy beyond the Abbe diffractionlimit, optical diagnostics and bio-sensing, optical data- and telecommunications, energyefficientlighting, and efficient solar energy conversion truly make optics and photonicsan important key enabling technology of the 21st century.The rapidly increasing possibilities of nanoscience enable a completely new level ofmolding the flow of light and controlling light-matter interaction, nearly on the atomicscale. This has for instance led to metallic nano-antennas for light that can modifyspontaneous emission of nearby molecules via local-field enhancement effects or that canact as high-figure-of-merit bio-sensors. Other interesting areas are artificial opticalmaterials (“metamaterials”) assembled from these antennas and nano-plasmonicstructures. Here, applications include but are not limited to ultra-compact and ultra-fastoptical telecommunication devices, efficient sustainable solar energy conversion, andbio-photonics. Transformation optics and “flat optics” expand the concepts ofmetamaterials and metasurfaces, respectively, towards intentionally spatiallyinhomogeneous structures, e.g., for invisibility cloaking and flat lenses or flatpolarization optics. Conversely, optics and photonics also fuel nanotechnology, e.g., bynovel super-resolution approaches in optical microscopy and lithography.The Institute will introduce the students to the field and provide a comprehensiveoverview on experiments and theory, basic physics and applications as well as onnanofabrication and optical characterization. It will bring together physicists, chemists,biologists and engineers; it will be in the best tradition of our past Institutes, because itwill start from the consideration of fundamental principles, and will reach the frontiers ofresearch in a systematic and didactic fashion.The participants will have the opportunity to present their research work in the form ofshort seminars or posters.B.

Info: dibartob@bc.edu