Focus issue introduction: synergy of structured light and structured materials

Takashige Omatsu (1) , Natalia M. Litchinitser (2) , Etienne Brasselet (3) , Ryuji Morita (4) , Jian Wang (5)

1 Chiba University
2 SUNY Buffalo - University at Buffalo [SUNY]
3 LOMA - Laboratoire Ondes et Matière d'Aquitaine
4 Hokkaido University [Sapporo, Japan]
5 HUST - Huazhong University of Science and Technology [Wuhan]

Structured light beams, such as optical vortices, vector beams, and non-diffracting beams, have been recently studied in a variety of fields, such as optical manipulations, optical telecommunications, nonlinear interactions, quantum physics, and 'super resolution' microscopy.. Their unique physical properties, such as annular intensity profile, helical wavefront and orbital angular momentum, give rise to a plethora of new, fundamental light-matter interactions and device applications. Recent progress in nanostructured materials, including metamaterials and metasurfaces, opened new opportunities for structured light generation on the microscale that exceed the capabilities of bulk-optics approaches such as computer generated holography and diffractive optics. Furthermore, structured optical fields may interact with matters on the subwavelength scale to yield new physical effects, such as spin-orbital momentum coupling. This special issue of Optics Express focuses on the state-of-the-art fundamental research and emerging technologies and applications enabled by the interplay of " structured light " and " structured materials " .

Mots clés: OCIS codes: (2606042) Singular optics; Laser materials processing; Metamaterials; Nonlinear microscopy; Physical optics; Optical tweezers or optical manipulation

Domaines: Optique [physics.optics]

Takashige Omatsu, Natalia M. Litchinitser, Etienne Brasselet, Ryuji Morita, Jian Wang. Focus issue introduction: synergy of structured light and structured materials. Optics Express, 2017, 25 (14), pp.16681-16685. ⟨10.1364/OE.25.016681⟩. ⟨hal-01721451⟩