Modern communication systems dealing with huge amounts of data at ever increasing
speed try to utilize the best aspects of electronic and optical circuits. Electronic
circuits are tiny but their operation speed is limited, whereas optical circuits
are extremely fast but their sizes are limited by diffraction. Waveguide components
utilizing surface plasmon (SP) modes were found to combine huge optical bandwidth
and compactness of electronics, and plasmonics thereby became considered as
the next chip-scale technology.
In this book, we concentrate on the SP waveguide configurations ensuring nanoscale
confinement and review the current status of this rapidly emerging field, considering
different configurations being developed for nanoscale plasmonic guides and
circuits. Both fundamental physics and application aspects of plasmonics are
reviewed in detail by world-leading experts.
A unique feature of this book is its strong focus on a particular subfield
of plasmonics dealing with subwavelength (nanoscale) waveguiding, an area which
is especially important in view of explosively growing interest to plasmonic
interconnects and nanocircuits. This research direction came to the fore very
recently, driven by the ever increasing demand of faster and smaller interconnects
to be used inside computer chips, and stimulated by the progress in our understanding
of basic physical phenomena involved in SP excitation, imaging and manipulation.
Readership: Advanced graduate and postgraduate students, researchers and engineers
interested in the physics of surface plasmons and their use for nanoscale photonics.
Key Features:
- Covers an important field that is driven by the need communication systems
to deliver larger amounts of data at an ever increasing speed
- Focuses on a particular subfield of plasmonics that deals with subwavelength
(nanoscale) waveguiding, a rapidly developing area of plasmonic interconnects
and nanocircuits
- Contains a good balance of chapters covering the essential fundamentals
and applications by prominent researchers
Edited by Sergey I Bozhevolnyi (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark)