Article
Optics of Nanostructured Materials
Measurement Science and Technology
(2001)
Abstract
Optics of Nanostructured Materials covers a selection of advanced research topics that deal with the optical properties of disordered materials including fractals, clusters, nanocomposites, aggregates and semiconductor nanostructures, and those of ordered artificial systems like the photonic band-gap crystals and the photonic crystal fibres. Each chapter of this book is written by leading scientists in their own field. The format is that of a review article, which first places the field in context and then gives a detailed and in-depth description of recent developments in that field. The chapters are well documented with an extensive bibliography, which will make the book valuable for advanced graduate students and researchers who are interested in learning about a given topic and getting an overview of the latest results.
The first two chapters deal with photonic crystals with an emphasis on the concept of photonic band-gap and the theoretical methods used to describe the electromagnetic waves in these materials. Recent achievements in this field are described: they include a discussion of defects in artificially made 3D photonic crystals and their contribution to the transmission of the waves when absorption is accounted for. Applications of photonic crystals to waveguides and resonant cavity antennas are described. A separate chapter is devoted to the fabrication of photonic crystal fibres and a description of their intriguing and sometimes counterintuitive waveguiding properties. Two chapters are devoted to near-field optics. The first one gives an exhaustive and comprehensive presentation of both the main principles of this technique with its various configurations and the challenging aspects of the theoretical description of near-field optical phenomena. Several illustrations of these phenomena are described in detail: light confinement by phase conjugation of optical near-field, localization of surface plasmon polaritons by surface roughness and the observation of localized dipolar excitations. The second chapter deals with near-field optics in semiconductor heterostructures and nanostructures. A microscopic theory of the optical properties of semiconductor structures is presented when either detection or excitation (or both) is performed in the near-field. The excitation of a sample through an aperture placed above or on a semiconductor surface is treated in detail to illustrate the specificity of near-field versus far-field optical studies. The use of near-field techniques to study localized excitons in disordered heterostructures and quantum dots is then reviewed with an emphasis on the distortion of the radiative properties of excitons under these observation conditions and on wave packet dynamics of coherently excited excitons.
Semiconductor nanostructures are described in two separate chapters reviewing the optical and electronic properties of quantum wires and quantum dots. The chapter devoted to quantum wires places a large emphasis on their optoelectronic properties and their potential device applications. A complete section describes a calculation of third-order nonlinear optical susceptibility resulting from excitonic and biexcitonic contributions. The effect of a magnetic field on the binding energy of both the excitons and the biexcitons is also presented with the details of the calculation. The chapter on semiconductor quantum dots starts with a review of the principal fabrication techniques as many approaches have been used to produce quantum dots with different charcteristics. A section on optical devices describes specific applications where quantum dots present an advantage over conventional semiconductor heterostructures. A final section describes the development of quantum logic gates and the limitations imposed by quantum coherence on their operation.
The remaining six chapters of this book cover a classical description of the optical properties of various nanostructures. One chapter deals with the occurrence of light localization in three-dimensional disordered dielectrics. The theoretical model is developed completely and new aspects of the Anderson localization of electromagnetic waves in 3D random dielectric media are unravelled. A chapter on random metal-dielectric films deals with the optical properties of these films and a theoretical understanding of anomalous optical phenomena that are found in the near IR and microwave range of the EM spectrum. Through detailed computer simulations giant fluctuations of the electric and magnetic fields are found near the percolation threshold. A chapter on the optical nonlinearities in metal colloidal solutions reviews various aspects of experimental studies of metal fractal aggregates. A theoretical description of the linear and nonlinear optical properties of disordered clusters and nanocomposites is described in a separate chapter with an emphasis on photoprocesses and their enhancement in clusters. Two chapters are dedicated to the optical properties of fractal smoke or soot aggregates. One emphasizes the geometrical aspects and the structure of soot aggregates that modify the optical properties of these soot particles when they coagulate in large aerosol structures. The other one presents a theoretical approach to the calculation of the optical properties of fractal smoke assuming a simple fractal structure that is far less complex than the structure of soot aggregates found in aerosols.
Disciplines
Publication Date
2001
DOI
10.1088/0957-0233/12/9/703
Citation Information
Vadim Markel and Thomas F George. "Optics of Nanostructured Materials" Measurement Science and Technology Vol. 12 Iss. 9 (2001) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/thomas-george/261/