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Applied Nanophotonics
“Applied NanoPhotonics: there's more to light than meets the eye”
Optics has revolutionized fields as various as data storage and long-distance telecommunication. Optical systems have a chance to become even more ubiquitous in other areas, like today's smart devices, but this step requires further miniaturization. The example of electronics shows us that miniaturization will sooner or later hit physical limitations. In the case of optics this will be in the nanoworld. Working with optics on this scale requires new concepts to be developed and many questions to be answered: How can we shrink the dimensions of optical structures to or even below the wavelength limit? To what extend can we build so-called "meta materials" that have specially engineered optical properties by nanostructuring? How can we miniaturize lasers, reduce their threshold and increase their yield? How can one make high-sensitivity optical detectors, e.g. for medical applications, and integrate them in low-cost labs on a chip? And on the more fundamental side: Can single emitters be controlled efficiently and embedded into nanophotonic structures? Can we use nanophotonics to study complex (molecular) systems and can we tailor light to efficiently steer their behavior? Are there opportunities to exploit the quantum character of light for new functionality? The goal of our SRO is to address some of these questions exploiting the expertise in MESA+ groups.
The Strategic Research Orientation (SRO) Applied Nanophotonics (ANP) started in October 2009 with the arrival of Pepijn Pinkse from the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching to become ANP program director at MESA +. ANP fosters new research and develops new expertise on a few key areas. For instance by means of ANP group meetings, colloquia and workshops, ANP stimulates cooperation between the research groups at MESA + that have a strong optics focus including COPS, IOMS, LPNO, NBP, and OS.
Latest news
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19 Jan 2012: Simon Huisman wins Posterprize! ANP PhD student Simon Huisman wins the € 750 poster prize at FOM Veldhoven! His poster entitled “Photonic-crystal waveguides with disorder: measurement of a band-edge tail in the density of states” impressed the jury by deep physical insights and excellent presentation. ... read more |
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26 Aug 2011: ANP publishes article on Q control ANP publishes its first home-grown result in J. Phys. D on controlling the quality factor of a cryogenic tuning-fork resonance! The article by G. Ctistis et al is an important step towards a cryogenic near-field microscope which will extend near-field microscopy capacities to temperature well below 10 Kelvin. ... read more |
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With the help of Ale Strooisma, ANP has overhauled its website completely. Have a look for yourself by trying out some links on the left. ... read more |
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30 June 2011: Nature article by Pepijn Pinkse Nature article on " Observation of squeezed light from one atom excited with two photons" by a group from the Max-Planck Institute for Quantum optics in Garching including Pepijn Pinkse, ANP's program director. ... read more |
