41^th Global Nanotechnology Congress

Optical Materials and Plasmonics

Plasmonic materials are metals or metal-like materials that exhibit negative real permittivity. Most common plasmonic materials are gold and silver. However, many other materials show metal-like optical properties in specific wavelength ranges.Using nanophotonics to create high peak intensities: If a given amount of light energy is squeezed into a smaller and smaller volume ("hot-spot"), the intensity in the hot-spot gets larger and larger. This is especially helpful in nonlinear optics; an example is surface-enhanced Raman scattering.