Advances in Nanophotonics: Active Photonic Crystal Structures and Devices

The nanostructuring of optical materials may significantly alter their optical and optoelectronic properties. Structuring on a length scale well below the wavelength of light may create new artificial atoms (quantum dots) or new effective media (metamaterials) that may be designed to have (optical) properties that do not exist in nature.

Periodic structuring on the length scale of the wavelength of light as in photonic crystals, on the other hand, dramatically influences the propagation of light as well as the fundamental interaction between light and matter. In this talk, I shall discuss some important consequences on spontaneous emission and lasing as well as some aspects of slow light and nonlinear interactions.