Surface plasmons are waves that propagate along the surface of a conductor. By altering the structure of a metal's surface, the properties of surface plasmons--in particular their interaction with light--can be tailored, which offers the potential for developing new types of photonic device. This could lead to miniaturized photonic circuits with length scales that are much smaller than those currently achieved. Surface plasmons are being explored for their potential in subwavelength optics, data storage, light generation, microscopy and bio-photonics.

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Surface plasmon subwavelength optics

We review the field of cavity optomechanics, which explores the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and nano- or micromechanical motion This review covers the basics of optical cavities and mechanical resonators, their mutual optomechanical interaction mediated by the radiation pressure force, the large variety of experimental systems which exhibit this interaction, optical measurements of mechanical motion, dynamical backaction amplification and cooling, nonlinear dynamics, multimode optomechanics, and proposals for future cavity quantum optomechanics experiments In addition, we describe the perspectives for fundamental quantum physics and for possible applications of optomechanical devices

Cavity Optomechanics

Photonic crystal fibers guide light by corralling it within a periodic array of microscopic air holes that run along the entire fiber length Largely through their ability to overcome the limitations of conventional fiber optics—for example, by permitting low-loss guidance of light in a hollow core—these fibers are proving to have a multitude of important technological and scientific applications spanning many disciplines The result has been a renaissance of interest in optical fibers and their uses

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/299/5605/358.full.pdf

Photonic crystal fibers

A fast-Fourier-transform method of topography and interferometry is proposed. By computer processing of a noncontour type of fringe pattern, automatic discrimination is achieved between elevation and depression of the object or wave-front form, which has not been possible by the fringe-contour-generation techniques. The method has advantages over moire topography and conventional fringe-contour interferometry in both accuracy and sensitivity. Unlike fringe-scanning techniques, the method is easy to apply because it uses no moving components.

Fourier-transform method of fringe-pattern analysis for computer-based topography and interferometry

A review is presented of the book “Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment,” edited by Thomas Gilovich, Dale Griffin, and Daniel Kahneman.

Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment

We report the fabrication of a new type of optical waveguide: the photonic crystal fiber. It consists of a pure silica core surrounded by a silica-air photonic crystal material with a hexagonal symmetry. The fiber supports a single robust low-loss guided mode over a very broad spectral range of at least 458-1550 nm. Also see errata - http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/78010/

All-silica single-mode optical fiber with photonic crystal cladding

We made an all-silica optical fiber by embedding a central core in a two-dimensional photonic crystal with a micrometer-spaced hexagonal array of air holes. An effective-index model confirms that such a fiber can be single mode for any wavelength. Its useful single-mode range within the transparency window of silica, although wide, is ultimately bounded by a bend-loss edge at short wavelengths as well as at long wavelengths.

Endlessly single-mode photonic crystal fiber.

The confinement of light within a hollow core (a large air hole) in a silica-air photonic crystal fiber is demonstrated Only certain wavelength bands are confined and guided down the fiber, each band corresponding to the presence of a full two-dimensional band gap in the photonic crystal cladding Single-mode vacuum waveguides have a multitude of potential applications from ultrahigh-power transmission to the guiding of cold atoms

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/285/5433/1537.full.pdf

Single-Mode Photonic Band Gap Guidance of Light in Air.

A photonic crystal fibre including a plurality of longitudinal holes (220), in which at least some of the holes have a different cross-sectional area in a first region (200) of the fibre, that region having been heat-treated after fabrication of the fibre, from their cross-sectional area in a second region of the fibre (190), wherein the optical properties of the fibre in the heat-treated region (200) are altered by virture of the change in cross-sectional area of holes (230) in that region (200).

Photonic crystal fibres

A fundamentally different type of optical waveguide structure is demonstrated, in which light is confined to the vicinity of a low-index region by a two-dimensional photonic band gap crystal. The waveguide consists of an extra air hole in an otherwise regular honeycomb pattern of holes running down the length of a fine silica glass fiber. Optical fibers based on this waveguide mechanism support guided modes with extraordinary properties.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/282/5393/1476.full.pdf

Jonathan Knight

Papers

All-silica single-mode optical fiber with photonic crystal cladding

Endlessly single-mode photonic crystal fiber.

Single-Mode Photonic Band Gap Guidance of Light in Air.

Photonic crystal fibres

Photonic Band Gap Guidance in Optical Fibers