Chapter 1 |

Historical Survey
From Optics to Nanophotonics
What is Nanophotonics?

Nanophotonics (or Nano-optics):

is the study of the behavior of light on the

nanometer scale, and of the interaction of
nanometer-scale objects with light
Toward a Technological Revolution?!

Time
15,300,000,00 transistors

in 610 mm2, 16 nm
History of Optics

Ancien Lenses
Nimrud lens (Egypt, 2600BC)
Nineveh lens (Assyria, 1000BC)
Babylonian lens (Babylon, 787BC)
 History of Optics

Development of Geometrical optics

Greco-Roman world (Euclid, Ptolemy)
Islamic world (Ibn Sahl)
Medieval Europe (Roger Bacon)
1st theoretical framework for
refraction of rays (984)

Ibn Sahl
Light being refracted by a spherical glass (940-1000)
container full of water (Opus Majus, 1267)
History of Optics

Modern Optics
J. Kepler (1600, Astronomiae Pars Optica)
G. Galilei (1609, Improved 1st telescope)
Huygens
W. Snellius (1621, refraction)
R. Descartes (1637, Dioptrics, refraction, reflection)
C. Huygens (1690, Trait de la lumire)
Descartes Snellius
I. Newton (1704, Opticks) Newton
Kepler
History of Optics

Microscopy
Hans & Zacharias Janssen (1595, 1st microscope)
G. Galilei (1610, improved version)
A. van Leeuwenhoek (1671, best resolution 100+ yrs)
History of Optics

18th & 19th century: polarization, diffraction, dispersion

Resolution is bound by the
diffraction limit
Abbe (1873): /2NA
Rayleigh (1879): 0.61/NA

Ernst K. Abbe John William Strutt,

Different techniques were invented 3rd Baron Rayleigh

to beat this limit:

Confocal, Multiphoton, Second-harmonic, Third-
harmonic, and coherent anti-Stokes Raman
scattering microscopy
History of Optics

Near-field Optics
Proposed by Synge (1928)
The idea of the method is exceedingly simple, and it has
been suggested to me by a distinguished physicist that it
would be of advantage to give it publicity, even though I
was unable to develop it in more than an abstract way.
Synge was referring to Albert Einstein.
Diagram sent from Synge to Einstein
Sub-wavelength resolution
Dietr Pohl
in the microwave region
(Ash and Nichols, 1972)
Sub-wavelength resolution
at optical frequencies
(Pohl, Denk, and Lanz, 1984)
History of Electromagnetism
In the mean time.
C.-A. de Coulomb
Coulombs law relates the electric
fields to the point charge which
are their sources fundamental
law of electrostatics (1785)
S.D. Poisson J.B. Biot & F. Savart
Poissons law relates the Biot-Savarts law relates the
electric potential to the magnetic fields to the electric
charge density (1812) currents which are their sources
fundamental law of
magnetostatics (1820)
History of Electromagnetism
J.C.F. Gauss
Gauss law relates the
distribution of electric
charge within a closed
surface to the resulting
electric field flux theorem
/ divergence law (1813)
A.M. Ampre M. Faraday
Amperes law relates the Faraday's law predicts how a
integrated magnetic field magnetic field will interact
around a closed loop to the with an electric circuit to
electric current passing produce an electromotive
through the loop circuital force electromagnetic
law (1823) induction (1831)
History of Electromagnetism

M. Faraday J.C.F. Gauss A.M. Ampre

J.C. Maxwell
(1861-1864)
Do you really know Maxwells Equations?

Total current density

Faradays law

Gauss law for Electric elasticity eq.

magnetism (constitutive eq.)

Ohms law
(constitutive eq.)
Ampre-Maxwell law
Gauss law

Continuity eq.
Oliver Heaviside
(1884, 1893)
History of Electromagnetism

1785, Coulombs law

1812, Poissons law
1813, Gauss law
1820, H.C. rsted: an electric current creates a magnetic field
1820, Ampres work founds electrodynamics;
Biot-Savart Law is discovered
1826, Ampres law
1831, Faradays law
1856, Maxwell publishes On Faradays lines of force
1861-1862, Maxwell publishes On physical lines of force
1864, Maxwell publishes A dynamical theory of the
electromagnetic field
1873, Maxwell publishes Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism
1884, Heaviside reformulates Maxwells equations

...
1940, Einstein popularizes the name Maxwells Equations
Birth of Nanophotonics & Plasmonics

1857, Michael Faraday performed his

experiments on metal colloidal solutions
1908, Gustav Mie presented an analytical
treatment of the interaction of spherical
particles with light
1957, Rufus Ritchie predicted the
existence of surface plasmons
1960s & 1970s, first experiments on
surface plasmons (Otto, Kretchmann,
Fleischmann, Van Duyne,...)
Plasmonics before Plasmonics

Lycurgus Cup (4th century)

British Museum, London

Stained Glass,
South Rose Window (1260)
Notre Dame, Paris