Metamaterials and Nanophotonics

Constantin Simovski and Sergei Tretyakov

Department of Radio Science and Engineering

School of Electrical Engineering
Aalto University
Finland

September 11, 2017

Contents

Preface vi

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Course content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2.1 Metamaterials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2.2 Nanophotonics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.3 Course structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.4 Learning outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

2 Properties of materials 12
2.1 Constitutive relations and material parameters . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2 Frequency dispersion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.1 Linear response and causality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.2 The main dispersion mechanisms and models . . . . . . 15
2.2.3 Kramers-Kronig relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.3 Electromagnetic waves in materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.3.1 Dispersion equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.3.2 Dispersion diagrams and constant-frequency contours . 24
2.3.3 Phase and group velocities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

3 Photonic crystals 28
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.1.1 What are photonic crystals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.1.2 Natural photonic crystals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.2 Photonic band structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

i
CONTENTS ii

3.2.1 Bragg scattering as a reason of photonic bandgap . . . 32

3.2.2 Analogy with the solid-state bandgap structure . . . . 34
3.2.3 Bloch’s theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.2.4 Brillouin diagrams of 2D and 3D photonic crystals . . . 40
3.3 Governing equation of photonic crystals, their scalability and
numerical simulations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

4 Applications of photonic crystals 50

4.1 Conventional applications of photonic crytals . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.1.1 Defect states . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.1.2 Defect waveguides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.1.3 Add-drop filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.1.4 Photonic-crystal fibers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.2 Unusual applications of photonic crytals . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.2.1 Pseudolens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.2.2 Superprism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

5 Plasmonics 74
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
5.2 Surface plasmon polaritons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
5.2.1 Dispersion equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
5.2.2 Slab waveguides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
5.2.3 Surface waves at low frequencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5.2.4 Excitation of surface plasmon polaritons . . . . . . . . 84
5.3 Plasmonic nanoparticles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
5.3.1 Polarizability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
5.3.2 Localized surface plasmons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5.4 Chains of plasmonic nanoparticles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
5.5 Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

6 Metamaterials 95
6.1 Metamaterials concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
6.2 Double-negative materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
6.3 Perfect lens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
CONTENTS iii

6.4 Engineered and extreme material parameters . . . . . . . . . . 107

6.4.1 Wire media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
6.4.2 Split rings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
6.5 Controlling bianisotropy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

7 Metasurfaces 120
7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
7.2 Homogenization models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
7.2.1 Collective and individual polarizabilities . . . . . . . . 122
7.2.2 Impedance (transition) boundary conditions . . . . . . 124
7.2.3 Sheet impedance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
7.2.4 Usual materials, antenna arrays, and metasurfaces com-
pared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
7.3 Synthesis of metasurface topologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
7.4 Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
7.4.1 Matched transmitarrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
7.4.2 Metamirrors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
7.5 Perfect control of anomalous transmission and reflection . . . 141
7.5.1 Perfect transmitarrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
7.5.2 Perfect reflectarrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

8 Optical sensing 145

8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
8.1.1 Surface-enhanced Raman scattering for molecular sensing145
8.1.2 Brillouin-Mandelstam and Raman radiations . . . . . . 148
8.2 Electromagnetic model of SERS: Local field enhancement . . . 150
8.3 Fluorescence: Spectroscopy and imaging of small objects . . . 154
8.4 Plasmon-enhanced fluorescence in biosensing . . . . . . . . . . 156
8.5 Circuit theory of plasmonic optical sensing . . . . . . . . . . . 160
8.6 Purcell’s effect in SERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
8.7 Advanced SERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
8.8 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
8.9 Appendix: A bit of history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
8.9.1 Why namely Raman scattering? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
8.9.2 SERS: physicists versus chemists . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
CONTENTS iv

9 Metatronics 180
9.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
9.1.1 Paradigm of all-optical signal processing . . . . . . . . 180
9.2 Metatronics concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
9.2.1 Optical lumped circuit elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
9.3 Metatronic systems based on ENZ metamaterials . . . . . . . 187
9.4 Metatronics in micron-collimated light beams . . . . . . . . . 188
9.4.1 Dielectric metasurface as a filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
9.4.2 Metal-dielectric metasurface as a high-order filter . . . 191
9.4.3 Optical quasi-diodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
9.5 Graphene platform for metatronics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
9.5.1 Surface conductivity of graphene . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
9.5.2 General sketch and possible realization . . . . . . . . . 196
9.5.3 SPP waveguides as graphene wires . . . . . . . . . . . 198
9.5.4 Graphene beam splitter and lens . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
9.6 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202

10 Nanostructures for enhancement of solar cells 207

10.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
10.1.1 A bit of history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
10.1.2 On enhancement of solar cells by passive nanostructures208
10.2 Release of the solar cell physics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
10.3 Overall efficiency of a solar cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
10.4 Anti-reflecting coatings for solar cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
10.4.1 Single-layer ARC and protecting glass for silicon solar
cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
10.4.2 Integral and averaged optical losses . . . . . . . . . . . 219
10.5 Moth-eye ARCs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
10.6 Black silicon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
10.7 Thin-film solar cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
10.7.1 ARC of nanospheres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
10.7.2 LTSs for epitaxial TFSCs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
10.7.3 Plasmonic LTSs for amorphous TFSCs . . . . . . . . . 236
10.7.4 Dielectric LTSs for amorphous TFSCs . . . . . . . . . 239
10.8 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
CONTENTS v

11 Nanostructured TPV systems 248

11.1 What are thermophotovoltaic systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
11.1.1 Why the cavity and why the filter are necessary? . . . 251
11.1.2 Radiative heat transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
11.1.3 Optimal operation band and Shokley-Queisser limit for
TPV systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
11.1.4 TPV systems as generators: House, plant, solar station 256
11.2 Advanced TPV systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
11.2.1 Solar TPV station: advanced design . . . . . . . . . . . 262
11.2.2 Emissivity of resonant metasurfaces . . . . . . . . . . . 264
11.2.3 On the near-field TPVS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
11.2.4 Micro-TPV systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
11.2.5 Low-temperature microgap TPV system enhanced by
nanowires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
11.3 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

12 Conclusions 282
Preface

This book is a set of lecture notes for the master and post-graduate (licen-
tiate) course on Metamaterials and Nanophotonics taught at the School of
Electrical Engineering of Aalto University (Finland) in the autumn semester
of 2017.

vi
Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 Motivation
Modern electronics, radio, and microwave techniques show fantastic achieve-
ments in device integration, miniaturization, efficiency, and speed. A device
containing millions of transistors can fit into a micrometer-size volume, which
is extremely small not only in practical terms, but also as compared to the
wavelength of waves which the device can control. In what concerns the
miniaturization, the modern electronics is coming to the limits imposed by
nature. In order to qualitatively improve existing telecommunication and
computing systems we need to develop other technologies, and optical (pho-
tonic) means are probably most promising. In modern telecommunication
systems the transmission of signals to long distances is performed by op-
tical fibers which largely replaced telephone and data cables. The optical
frequency range is preferred because the information capacity of a telecom-
munication channel based on conducting wires is fundamentally limited by
the available spectrum and the physical properties of metals (see a discus-
sion below) while modern optical fibers possess negligibly small scattering
and dissipative losses in the range of wavelength λ =1260–1675 nm, where
six telecom frequency bands with the relative widths 3–5% of each of them
are located. The same physical limitations of electronics call for the use of
optical techniques also for signal processing and storage. However, optical
devices are bulky, especially on the wavelength scale, and the existing tech-
nologies do not allow integration of many functions in a single device which
would be as compact as its electronic analogue. One of the main reasons for

1
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 2

this bottleneck is the difficulty to confine light into a small volume compared
with the wavelength. In radio and microwave technologies, we have, for ex-
ample, coaxial cables whose cross-section sizes are very small compared to
the wavelength. In optics, we have fibers, but their cross sections are no-
ticeably larger than the maximal guided wavelength. If we would only have
“optical means” to transport electromagnetic energy, the diameter of the
power supply cables would be of the order of many kilometers!
As another example, let us consider frequency filters. In radio and mi-
crowave engineering, we first squeeze the wave into a transmission line of a
tiny diameter, and then construct a filter using capacitors and inductors of
tiny sizes. The overall size of a properly designed filter is extremely small
compared to the wavelength, and it is small also in the absolute terms. Al-
ternatively, we can filter propagating waves using extremely thin reactive
sheets, called frequency selective surfaces. What can we do in optics? First,
modern optics does not have nanoguides – optical waveguides with the cross
section smaller than the guided wave length. Second, the industry does not
deliver optical capacitors nor inductors, yet. And we do not have optically
thin frequency selective sheets available on the market of optical devices.
We have to resort to multilayers of carefully selected dielectric layers, each
of which has the thickness comparable with the wavelength, and illuminate
them by optical beams which are much wider than the wavelength. Again, if
we would use only “optical means” to design radios, every simple filter would
have the size of many meters in diameter! And we need many tens of such
filters in every mobile phone.
We can understand from these two examples that the traditional optical
approaches and the signal processing which is so elaborated in radio and
microwave engineering are not compatible. Only transmission of signals to
long distances is, nowadays, performed optically. Processing of signals and
computations are still done electronically. The time has come when optical
and radio engineers must meet and work together to create nanophotonics
devices for future optical processors and fully-optical telecom systems. Ra-
dio and optics converge in this area, and the breakthrough is possible only
through interdisciplinary research.
The interdisciplinary science of metamaterials and nanophotonics deals
with electromagnetic devices and components whose characteristic dimen-
sions are smaller or of the same order (as in photonic crystals) as the wave-
length of radiation which they control. The current state-of-the-art is illus-
trated in Fig. 1.1. While for the use at microwave and radio frequencies we
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 3

Microwaves and radio

Metamaterials Optics

Nanophotonics
???
ELEC-4810 !!!

d<l d~l d>>l

Figure 1.1: Metamaterials and nanophotonics devices are necessary for sub-
micrometer integration, but this field is still largely unexplored.

have a basically complete set of components (waveguides, passive, active, and

nonreciprocal elements) as well as means to integrate them into extremely
small devices, at the optical frequencies the corresponding box is only starting
to be filled by optical nanoguides (such as plasmonic waveguides), metasur-
faces, and metamaterial devices. Only the intermediate regime where the
characteristic sizes are comparable with the wavelength is well studied and
developed: the photonic crystal technique is quite mature at this time. We
see that any progress towards sub-micron integration of photonic devices is
impossible without advances in metamaterials and nanophotonics.
One can ask why we need to develop integrated optical devices since we
do have a mature technology in electronics and microwaves? Why we re-
ally need a breakthrough if there are optoelectronic converters transposing
signals from the optical band to the band of radio frequencies and back?
There are two main reasons why the breakthrough in this field is really de-
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 4

manded. First, optoelectronic converters, even advanced, form a bottleneck

in the modern telecommunication systems (see Chapter 9). Second, there
are two fundamental limitations of electronics and microwave technologies
which block further qualitative progress in this field. One is the thermal
noise. According to the Planck law, the spectral density of thermal radiation
at a given temperature is given by

2hf 3 1
P (f, T ) = 2 hf , (1.1)
c e kB T − 1

where f is the frequency, T is the absolute temperature, h is the Planck

constant, and kB is the Boltzmann constant. In the optical domain we have
hf  kB T even at room temperatures, and the thermal noise is practically
negligible. In contrast, thermal noise is a serious problem at radio and mi-
crowave frequencies (here, hf  kB T ).
The other limitation is imposed by the dispersion and power loss in elec-
tronic interconnects. Signal will be transported without distortion and in-
formation loss if the pulse shape does not significantly change upon trans-
mission, and the signal power does not decay. Ideally, we would like to
have a transmission line without dispersion. In optics, free-space propaga-
tion is dispersion free and we have low-dispersion and low-loss optical fibers.
Non-dispersivep waveguides have purely real characteristic impedance (in free
space, η0 = µ0 /0 ). In electrical interconnects (metal transmission lines
and cables), the impedance is determined by the per-unit-length parameters
L, C, R: s r s
jωL + R L R
Zc = = 1+ . (1.2)
jωC C jωL
For propagation without pulse shape degradation we need to ensure that

R  ωL, (1.3)
q p
then Zc ≈ CL = µ0 /0 × a geometrical factor, and we have as an ideal
situation as in free-space propagation of light. However, is this condition
compatible with the submicron miniaturization of circuitry?
Let us make an estimate considering a short section of a transmission line
(length l) formed by two metal conductors (the cross-section size w×w). The
resistance R can be estimated as σwl 2 , where σ is the metal conductivity. The
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 5

inductance L ≈ µ0 l (there is also a cross-section shape dependent factor of

the order of unity, which we neglect). Substituting the room-temperature
conductivity of copper at microwaves (σ ≈ 5.8 × 107 S/m), we see that at
microwave and millimeter-wave frequencies the diameter of the interconnect
wire w should be larger than about 0.1−0.5 mkm, which is a severe limitation
on device integration. Inevitable losses in metal conductors lead to signal
propagation loss and to device heating, which are other significant negative
factors.
To summarize, one can expect that the next breakthrough in telecom-
munications, computing, imaging, etc. will come as a result of advances in
nanophotonics and metamaterials which will enable the replacement of ra-
dio and microwave signals by optical signals also in signal processing and
computations. One may say that the knowledge of nanophotonics and meta-
materials gives an engineer a unique chance to contribute into solutions of
this global technological challenge.

1.2 Course content

1.2.1 Metamaterials
Electromagnetic properties of natural or chemically synthesised materials are
determined mainly by their chemical composition. For realizing optical de-
vices, the range of accessible material properties is rather limited. We have
dielectrics (with moderate values of the permittivity, between 1 and about
12), metals (rather lossy negative-permittivity materials), weakly chiral ma-
terials, and that is basically all. There are no natural magnetics, not to speak
about more exotic and interesting media (like mu-near-zero or extreme chi-
rality materials) which an engineer would need in designing optical nanode-
vices. Within the metamaterial paradigm, it becomes possible to widen the
material design opportunities by engineering “meta-atoms” as constitutive
elements of artificial materials using available ordinary (natural) materials.
As long as the meta-atom sizes remain sufficiently small on the wavelength
scale of interest, the same approaches to the macroscopic description of elec-
tromagnetic properties of matter can be applied to metamaterials made of
meta-atoms, just like to ordinary materials formed by atoms or molecules.
However, within the metamaterial paradigm, the electromagnetic properties
of materials can be controlled not only by varying chemical composition but
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 6

also by engineering meta-atoms shapes and their internal structures, as well

as mutual positions and orientations of meta-atoms in the composite mate-
rial. The main appeal of the metamaterial concept derives from new pos-
sibilities to realize artificial materials with electromagnetic properties which
are not available in any natural material and from possibilities to engineer
properties which are optimal for particular applications. Basic possibilities
to control reflection and refraction using “usual” materials, metamaterials,
and photonic crystals are illustrated in Fig. 1.2.

Usual material Metamaterial Photonic crystal

Figure 1.2: Reflection and refraction regimes for sample of bulk materials
and metamaterials.

Research on artificial electromagnetic materials (now called metamateri-

als and metasurfaces) started at the end of the nineteenth century, very soon
after formulation of the Maxwell equations, but developments were slow. At
present time, this research field is extremely active and fast developing. Per-
haps the main current challenges are to learn how to realize materials with
precisely the optimal properties for particular applications and to explore
the whole physically allowed spectrum of material parameter values [2]. In
particular, including materials with extermely small or large values of the
material parameters [3, 4].
At this time, it appears that the main research focus is shifting from vol-
umetric electromagnetic metamaterials to metasurfaces [5], see a conceptual
illustration in Fig. 1.3. For realizations in the visible part of the spectrum,
all-dielectric metamaterials and especially all-dielectric metasurfaces are ac-
tively studied [6]. Studies of nonlinear [7], nonreciprocal, and time-modulated
metamaterials and metasurfaces gain momentum. Fundamental research on
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 7

Figure 1.3: Reflection and refraction regimes: from homogeneous sheets to

optically large screens.

metamaterials leads to developments of “metadevices” and systems, see e.g.

a review paper [8]. Last but not least, metamaterial technology comes into
commercial products (e.g., products of Kymeta, Sensormetrix, Ecodyne). In
the near future one can hope to see

• Optimal (application-driven) designs of engineered materials and sur-

faces

• Reconfigurable, self-adapting, and software-defined metamaterials and

metasurfaces

• Extreme-properties and extreme-performance metamaterials

• Active, nonlinear, and parametric (time-varying) structures, including

the use of non-Foster elements

• Full exploration of spatial dispersion (especially mesoscopic regimes

between metamaterials and photonic crystals)

• Going into quantum regime

• And more. . .

1.2.2 Nanophotonics
Nanophotonics is the study of the behaviour of light on the nanoscale and the
interaction of submicron objects with light. It is a multidisciplinary scientific
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 8

and technical area which comprises the most advanced parts of modern op-
tics, including quantum optics, radio science (applied electromagnetics) and
nanotechnology. It also concerns electrical engineering, solid-state physics,
physical chemistry, biophysics and biochemistry. In this course we mainly
concentrate on the electromagnetic part of nanophotonics where classical op-
tics intersects with radio science. However, we will also study nanostructures
for light energy harvesting and conversion into electricity. In these chapters
of our course, studies of light-matter interactions imply knowledge of some
basic elements of solid-state and quantum physics.
In its optical part, one of the most important targets of nanophotonics is
miniaturization of optical components (see also Section 1.1). For this purpose
one should learn how to squeeze macroscopic light beams, e.g., coming from
an optical fiber, into a volume comparable to the wavelength or even sub-
wavelength, and guide this concentrated light. In optoelectronic convertors
guided signals should be transmitted to photodetectors: advanced photo-
voltaic diodes, CMOS or charge-coupling devices which have been available
with submicron sizes since 1980s [9–11]. In prospective all-optical signal pro-
cessors and in optical quantum computers the squeezed signal needs to be
transmitted to optical memory cells which may have the minimal size as
small as 10 nm with the maximal size of the order of 500 nm [12]. Such a cell
in order to record and erase information needs subwavelength concentration
of the field in a nanoguide with essentially submicron cross section [12]. So
sharp light concentration is not achieved by usual lenses or curved mirrors.
The most elaborated approach to subwavelength light concentration in op-
tics is the use of so-called plasmonic structures (Chapter 5. These structures
can be in form of bulk plasmonic metamaterials or plasmonic metasurfaces.
Thus, there is no boundary between nanophotonics and nanostructured meta-
materials. This is why the present course unifies both nanophotonics and
metamaterial topics.
An important target of nanophotonics is related to medical and biolog-
ical applications – it is optical nanosensing and nanoimaging – sensing and
imaging of submicron objects. These tools are of extreme importance for
genetics, micro- and molecular biology, and also for medical diagnostics.
The challenge of very weak interaction of light with so small objects as liv-
ing cells, leucocytes, bacteria, and even single molecules is resolved using
nanophotonics structures. Besides flat plasmonic surfaces used in a branch
of optical nanoimaging called surface-plasmon microscopy, all other nanopho-
tonic components used for optical nanosensing and nanoimaging have sub-
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 9

micron structures. They are photonic crystals, metamaterials, and even iso-
lated plasmonic nanoparticles (in two branches of optical nanosensing called
plasmon-enhanced fluorescence and plasmon-enhanced luminescence). How-
ever, probably the most hot topic of nanophotonics is, nowadays, metasur-
faces for molding light at nanoscale. Here, nanophotonics strongly inter-
sects with a branch of optical nanosensing which had appeared long before
the concept of nanophotonics and metamaterials was elaborated. This type
of optical nanosensing is called surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS).
SERS employs nanopatterned or textured plasmonic surfaces that perfectly
match with the basic definition of metasurface. Nowadays, SERS is a part
of nanophotonics (see Chapter 8) as well as all other methods of optical
nanosensing and nanoimaging.
Returning to data processing, one should recall that squeezing the op-
tical signal to the nanoguide is not enough. The signal has to be filtered,
separated from other signals, preventing their cross talks, amplified, etc. All
these problems refer to nanophotonics. Photonic crystals enable very good
nanoguiding and separation of signals in devices based on these waveguides.
The cross section of photonic-crystal waveguides is still comparable with the
wavelength: practically, of the order of 1 micron. However, traditionally
they are subjects of nanophotonics because the absolute majority of pho-
tonic crystals operating in the visible and telecom ranges are composed of
submicron inclusions.
Filtering and amplification of squeezed signals is the subject or the so-
called metatronics which also covers subwavelength waveguides and some
computations functionalities (see the corresponding chapter). Nanophotonics
considers prospective submicron generators of optical signals called nanolasers.
Next, nanostructures which enhance the light conversion into electricity form
an important field of nanophotonics. It is known that the solar light can be
converted using photovoltaic devices called solar cells. The invisible (in-
frared) light, produced by very hot bodies can be converted as well. These
devices are called thermophotovoltaic generators. In both photovoltaic and
thermophotovoltaic generating systems, nanostructures open the door to
new mechanisms of light harvesting and will enable future technical break-
throughs. Therefore, corresponding chapters of this course cover these two
topics.
In this course we do not study optical memory cells, nanolasers, optical
transistors, switches, modulators and logical gates because these topics imply
a more deep knowledge of solid-state physics and quantum mechanics than
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 10

that required for understanding the present course. Other topics of nanopho-
tonics which do not enter this course are omitted because we try to discuss
the most important chapters of this science. Of course, our choice reflects
the scientific interests of the authors and cannot be fully unbiased.

1.3 Course structure

The course will be organized as a series of lectures and discussion sessions
(results of home-work assignments and seminars).
The lectures will cover the following main topics: Introduction (motiva-
tion: what changes if light “sees” particles which are smaller or comparable
in size with the wavelength and why this is important); Photonic crystals;
Plasmonic nanoparticles; Plasmonic waveguides (including particle chains);
Metamaterials (definition, main features, and why they are promising), Su-
perlenses; Metasurfaces (including extraordinary transmission and perfect
absorption); Review of applications (SERS, surface plasmon microscopy,
nanostructured solar cells, metatronics, etc.)

1.4 Learning outcomes

As results of the studies, the following outcomes are expected: Basic under-
standing of light-matter interaction at nano (subwavelength) scale, knowl-
edge of recent developments and optical applications of nanostructures, nanos-
tructured materials, and surfaces.

Bibliography
[1] L. Novotny and B. Hecht, Principles of Nano-Optics, second edition,
Cambridge University Press, 2012.
[2] A. Sihvola, S. Tretyakov, and A. de Baas, Metamaterials with extreme
material parameters, Journal of Communications Technology and Elec-
tronics 52, 986-990 (2007)
[3] R. W. Ziolkowski, Propagation in and scattering from a matched meta-
material having a zero index of refraction, Phys. Rev. E 70, 046608
(2004)
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 11

[4] A. Alù, M. G. Silveirinha, A. Salandrino, and N. Engheta, Epsilon-near-

zero metamaterials and electromagnetic sources: Tailoring the radiation
phase pattern, Phys. Rev. B 75, 155410 (2007)

[5] S. B. Glybovski, S. A. Tretyakov, P. A. Belov, Y. S. Kivshar, and C.

Simovski, Metasurfaces: From microwaves to visible, Physics Reports
634, 1-72 (2016)

[6] S. Jahani and Z. Jacob, All-dielectric metamaterials, Nature Nanotech-

nology 11, 23-36 (2016)

[7] N. M: Litchinitser and J. Sun, Optical meta-atoms: Going nonlinear,

Science 350, 1033-1034 (2015)

[8] N. I. Zheludev and Y. S. Kivshar, From metamaterials to metadevices,

Nat. Mater. 11, 917-924 (2012)

[9] B. C. Burkey, W. C. Chang, J. Littlehale, T. H. Lee, T. J. Tredwell, J.

P. Lavine, and E. A. Trabka, The pinned photodiode for an interline-
transfer CCD image sensor, Technical Digest of International Electron
Device Meeting IEDM’1984, San Franciso, CA, Dec. 9-12, 1984, pp.
28-31

[10] A. J. P. Theuwissen, Solid-State Imaging with Charge-Coupled Devices,

Kluwer, pp. 92-100 (1995)

[11] T. Lule, S. Benthien, H. Keller, F. Mütze, P. Rieve, K. Seibel, M. Som-

mer, and M. Böhm, Sensitivity of CMOS based imagers and scaling
perspectives, IEEE Trans. Electron Devices 47, 2110-2122 (2000)

[12] C. Rios, M. Stegmaier, P. Hosseini, D. Wang, T. Scherer, C. D. Wright,

H. Bhaskaran, and W. H. P. Pernice, Integrated all-photonic non-volatile
multi-level memory, Nature Photonics 9, 725-732 (2015)