Nanophotonic Optical Media - From Metamaterials to Photonic Crystals and Beyond

3 units

The nanometer length scale holds a unique significance for optical engineering because it is home to the wavelengths of visible and infrared light. The behavior of a light wave is particularly sensitive to structural features formed at or below the scale of its wavelength and, as a consequence, nanophotonics encompasses many new and useful phenomena not found in macroscopic systems. In this course, we will explore the physics of light-matter coupling before using it as a guide to engineer new optical material properties via nanofabrication, with applications in computing, telecommunications, biomedical sensing, solar energy harvesting, robotics and more. Key topics covered in the course include Mie resonant dielectric antennas, plasmonic antennas, negative and zero refractive index metamaterials, chiral metamaterials, metasurface lenses and holograms, nonlinear and time dependent metasurfaces, Bragg mirrors, 3D photonic crystals, photonic crystal slab waveguides and cavities, guided mode resonators, photonic crystal lasers.