Propagation of light in metallic nanowire arrays: Finite-difference time-domain studies of silver cylinders.  Stephen K. Gray and Teobald Kupka. Phys. Rev. B, 68, 045415 (2003).

Computational Nanophotonics.  Stephen K. Gray, Presentation, Chemistry Division Argonne National Laboratory Argonne, IL 60439

Description:

Traditional optics are useless at the nanoscale.  Optical imaging is generally limited to the wavelength of the light you look with.  For visible light that means no less than about 400 nanometers (the wavelength of blue light).  It would be great to control light or electromagnetic energy in nano-sized optical devices.

There may be a possible solution like using near-field coupling of light with surface plasmons of metal nanoparticles so that arrays of metal nanoparticles become photonic devices. This migth allow control of steady or pulsed modes of illumination.  Research in this direction is being guided by the power of modern computation.  Above is a simulation  of a pulse of vertically polarized, 400 nm light showing 100 nm scale localization when passing (left to right) through a funnel configuration of 30 nm diameter silver nanowires. 

Please contact the webmaster if you would like to submit an image