Optics at the nanoscale

Optics in the 21st century is undergoing revolutionary transformations driven by nanotecnology. Over just a few years we have seen tremendous progress of tiny, nanoscale optical components from fundamental concepts to mass-fabricated consumer products. Our group has been developing flat optical components 100 times thinner than a human hair that were outperforming conventional optical elements, such as holograms, lenses, wave retarders and beam deflectors, among others. Our components found applications in research of next-gen fiber communications, quantum cryptography and biosensing. One of the new frontiers of both fundamental and applied optics research is in interactions of nanostructured materials with strong optical fields. The talk will cover our most recent progress in these areas.