"Extreme Photonics & Applications" arises from the 2008 NATO Advanced
Study Institute in Laser Control & Monitoring in New Materials,
Biomedicine, Environment, Security and Defense. Leading experts in the
manipulation of light offered by recent advances in laser physics and
nanoscience were invited to give lectures in their fields of expertise
and participate in discussions on current research, applications and new
directions. The sum of their contributions to this book is a primer for
the state of scientific knowledge and the issues within the subject of
photonics taken to the extreme frontiers: molding light at the
ultra-finest scales, which represents the beginning of the end to
limitations in optical science for the benefit of 21st Century
technological societies.
Laser light is an exquisite tool for physical and chemical research.
Physicists have recently developed pulsed lasers with such short
durations that one laser shot takes the time of one molecular vibration
or one electron rotation in an atom, which makes it possible to observe
their internal electronic structure, thereby enabling the study of
physical processes and new chemical reactions.
In parallel, advances in micro- and nano-structured photonic materials
allow the precise manipulation of light on its natural scale of a
wavelength. Photonic crystals, plasmons and related metamaterials -
composed of subwavelength nanostructures - permit the manipulation of
their dispersive properties and have allowed the experimental
confirmation of bizarre new effects such as slow light and negative
refraction.
These advances open a vista on a new era in which it is possible to
build lasers and engineer materials to control and use photons as
precisely as it is already possible to do with electrons.
http: //www.photonics.uottawa.ca/nato-asi-2008/
