nanophotonics pick
Summer 2007 article selection
As member of the OMNT “materials and components for optics” committee, I regularly give a selection and a brief description of articles, that I found particularly relevant to the field. Here is my latest selection :
"Generation of optical Schrödinger cats from photon number states"; Alexei Ourjoumtsev, Hyunseok Jeong, Rosa Tualle-Brouri et Philippe Grangier, Nature 448, 784-786 (2007).
Schrodinger’s cat is a Gedankenexperiment in quantum physics, in which an atomic decay triggers the death of the cat. Because quantum physics allow atoms to remain in superpositions of states, the classical cat would then be simultaneously dead and alive. By analogy, a ‘cat’ state of freely propagating light can be defined as a quantum superposition of well separated quasiclassical states—it is a classical light wave that simultaneously possesses two opposite phases. Such states play an important role in fundamental tests of quantum theory and in many quantum information processing tasks, including quantum computation, quantum teleportation and precision measurements. Recently, optical Schrodinger ‘kittens’ were prepared; however, they are too small for most of the aforementioned applications and increasing their size is experimentally challenging. Here we demonstrate, theoretically and experimentally, a protocol that allows the generation of arbitrarily large squeezed Schrodinger cat states, using homodyne detection and photon number states as resources. We implemented this protocol with light pulses containing two photons, producing a squeezed Schro¨dinger cat state with a negative Wigner function. This state clearly exhibits several quantum phase-space interference fringes between the ‘dead’ and ‘alive’ components, and is large enough to become useful for quantum information processing and experimental tests of quantum theory.
"Label-free single molecule detection with optical microcavities"; A. A. Armani, R. P. Kulkarni, S.E. Fraser, R. C. Flagan et K. J. Vahala, Science 317, 783-787 (2007).
"Electromigrated nanoscale gaps for surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy"; D.R. Ward, N.K. Grady, C.S. Levin, N.J. Halas, Y. Wu, P. Nordlander et D. Nathelson, Nano Letters 7, 1396-1400 (2007).
Workshop : Plasmonics in biology and medicine
I’ll attend (and give a talk) at the next workshop on plasmonics in biology and medicine, to be held on Friday December 14th 2007 at ESPCI, 10 rue vauquelin 75005, Paris
Visit the website : http://gdr2588.ibl.fr/plasmon/intro_plasmonique.php
Registration is free !!!
Because of their unique optical properties, the use of plasmons is getting more and more important for biological and medical research. These applications include the use of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) to measure bioaffinity reactions, tailoring fluorescence properties and the use of metal colloids as new light-scattering probes fro imaging or phototherapy.
The goal of this workshop is to provide an interdisciplinary forum for state-of-the-art methods and instrumentation related the new research area of plasmonics and related nanosystems and their applications in biology and medicine. A poster session will complete the lectures and allows everyone to exchange their ideas on plasmonic.
Any future for the CNRS ?
So it didn’t take long to the newly elected French government to threaten (again) the CNRS. Now, the transfer of CNRS researchers to universities appears intended, giving a large power to universities deans, and totally weaking the CNRS institution. This will definitely not solve the university problem in ! French universities need an ambitious reform, but absorbing new researchers will not improve anything. More likely, it may even decrease the average quality of French research.
Universities need students, and students need a clear view of professional openings at the end of their studies. We will not solve today’s major university problem if we don’t improve the companies’ will to hire qualified university students. Bringing new researchers will only delay things.
More info at : http://www.sncs.fr/
Get up the petition : http://www.sncs.fr/phpPetitions/index.php?petition=2
SPP3 conference
Now back from the third international conference in surface plasmon photonics in
As a feedback, here are some stats about the number of sessions per topic, and the number of invited speakers per country.
Now reading...
After the Born & Wolf “Principles of Optics”, here is the “Principles of Nano-optics”, a very well-written textbook reviewing many aspects of nanophotonics by Lukas Novotny and Bert Hecht. Highly recommended !!
Click here to read the table of contents and the introduction (courtesy of amazon.fr)
