Time: 16:00

Zaal E 

School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Harvard University, Cambridge MA 021138

Surface Plasmon Polaritons (SSPs) allow one to achieve concentration of light into sub-wavelength regions thus opening up rich new directions in physical optics and photonics.

A wide range of phenomena and applications enabled by SPPs and bridging several fields, are currently being investigated by our group and will be presented in this talk: (a) plasmonic collimators that have allowed to dramatically reduce the divergence of semiconductor lasers, creating exciting opportunities in beam engineering; (b) plasmonic polarizers for arbitrary control of laser polarization; (c) new light sources such as plasmonic laser antennas, capable of creating intense nanospots for spatially resolved chemical imaging and ultra high density optical storage; (d) antenna arrays for surface enhanced Raman scattering; (e) frequency selective surfaces enabled by a new soft lithography techniques. Finally at nanoscale distances forces arising from quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field cannot be neglected give rising to both attractive and repulsive Casimir forces. The latter recently investigated in detail by us could lead to ultralow friction mechanical devices based on quantum levitation.