Light and Metal - Fundamentals and Applications of Surface Plasmons -

Tuesday 8 June 2010 at 4pm

CNRS Bât A, conference room on 2nd floor

Thomas EBBESEN (Institut de Science et d'Ingénierie Supramoléculaires - Strasbourg)

Surface plasmons have generated considerable renewed interest in the past decade due to wide potential they offer in everything from sensors to opto-electronics. Using modern fabrication techniques, it is possible to structure metals surface on nanometer scale and thereby to tailor the properties of surface plasmons for a given purpose. 

Since surface plasmons are essentially electromagnetic waves trapped at the metal surface, much effort is being oriented towards creating novel photonic devices and miniature circuits. The fundamental aspects of surface plasmons, their involvement enhanced transmission and diffraction control in aperture structures will be presented together examples of practical devices.

The different possibilities and challenges to create complete surface plasmon circuits will also be discussed [1-3].

 Ref.: 1. Barnes, Dereux and Ebbesen, Nature 424, 824 (2003);

2. Genet and Ebbesen, Nature 445, 39 (2007);

3.Ebbesen, Genet and Bozhevolnyi, Physics Today (May 2008).