Nanophotonics: Nanoscale Optical Interactions.

Nanophotonics defined as nanoscale optical science and technology is a new frontier, which includes nanoscale confinement of radiation, nanoscale confinement of matter, and nanoscale photophysical or photochemical transformation. Selected examples of our research work in each of these areas are presented here. Nonlinear optical interactions involving nanoscale confinement of radiation is both theoretically and experimentally studied using a near-field geometry. The effort in nanoscale confinement of optical domains is focused to control excitation dynamics and energy transfer as well as to produce photon localization using nanostructured materials, rare-earth work on doped glasses and novel inorganic-oganic photorefractive nanocomposites are presented. Spatially localized photochemistry using a near-field two-photon excitation is being developed for nanofabrication and nanoscale memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]