SCOPE

The interaction between light and small clusters of nanoscale metallic and/or dielectric components has been a recent subject of extensive experimental and theoretical research. Knowledge and understanding of the near- and far-field optical responses from individual and coupled nanoparticles have led to an unprecedented development in the fields of molecular optics, optical antenna design, surface enhanced spectroscopies, bio/chemical sensing, light guiding, solar cell system, information storage and other. Research of light-matter interaction at the nanoscale now presents an opportunity to build on the existing work or/and establish novel directions for this area of research.

We invite researchers to contribute with original research ideas that will stimulate the continuing reports to exploit the great potential that light-matter interaction have for real life applications but also to develop this field for future nanophotonic devices.

TOPICS OF INTEREST

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Modulation and Routing of Nonlinear Optical Signals with Metasurfaces Above GHz Rates

Michele Celebrano Politecnico di Milano Italy

Brief Bio
Michele Celebrano (https://www.fisi.polimi.it/en/staff/michele.celebrano) is Associate Professor at the Department of Physics of Politecnico di Milano and PI at the “supra Nano-Optics Milano” sNOm Lab (https://www.fisi.polimi.it/en/research-labs/snom), currently investigating the linear and nonlinear optical properties of nanoantennas and metasurfaces with the aim of exploiting nonlinear upconversion processes for sensing, optical logic operations and THz generation.
He received his PhD in Physics in 2008 at Politecnico di Milano under the supervision of Prof. Giulio Cerullo and successively worked as Post-Doc in the Nano-Optics Group led by Prof. Vahid Sandoghdar at ETH Zurich (2008-11). 
He currently Associate Editor at Optics Express and chair of the ‘Plasmonics and Metamaterial’ Committee of the CLEO-EQEC Congress. He published more than 150 among scientific papers and conference proceedings with more than 4000 citations and received the Italian habilitation to Full-Professor in 2020.

Abstract
The last decades witnessed major efforts in the field of nanophotonics to attain efficient nonlinear optical effects in nanoscale volumes. This endeavor is driven by the utmost prospect to perform light conversion in integrated devices for optical information processing, sensing and nonlinear digital holography. The main limitation in this scenario is the perturbative character of nonlinear interactions, whose intrinsic weakness is compounded in nanoscale systems. To overcome such fundamental limits a key strategy is to boost light–matter interaction by leveraging the localized field enhancements associated with optical resonances in engineered nanoantennas and metasurfaces [1]. While it is crystal clear that the conversion efficiencies of nanoscale systems will unlikely reach those attained in bulk crystals, the realized optical powers to date (up to µW) allows anticipating the application of nonlinear nanoscale platforms for electro- and all-optical light manipulation (e.g. modulation, steering and amplification). In this seminar, I will show some of our latest results in the modulation and routing of light upconversion employing optical metasurfaces based on highly nonlinear materials, namely lithium niobate (LiNbO3) and aluminum gallium arsenide (AlxGa1-xAs). First, I will present a LiNbO3 metasurface design empowered by quasi bound states in the continuum (qBIC) resonances that allows realizing electro-optic modulation of optical signals at telecom wavelengths with efficiency exceeding 10% at rates above the GHz [2] and a record SHG modulation of more than one order of magnitude. Finally, I will demonstrate all-optical routing and polarization modulation of upconverted optical signals exploiting nonlinear interferometry in periodic AlxGa1-xAs metasurfaces [3,4]. These experimental realizations allow envisioning modulation rates approaching that of the light optical cycle and can be employed for the realization of enhanced sensing platforms.

References
[1] L. Bonacina, P.-F. Brevet, M. Finazzi, and M. Celebrano “Harmonic Generation at the Nanoscale” Journal of Applied Physics 127, 230901 (2020)
[2] A. Di Francescantonio et al. “Efficient GHz electro-optical modulation with a nonlocal lithium niobate metasurface in the linear and nonlinear regime” submitted. https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.03422 
[3] A. Di Francescantonio et al. “All-optical free-space routing of upconverted light by metasurfaces via nonlinear interferometry”, Nat. Nanotechnology (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-023-01549-2
[4] Y. Luan, et al. “All-optical polarization control and routing by nonlinear interferometry at the nanoscale”, submitted. https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.07714 

Exploring Fano Resonances via Thin Film Photonics

Giuseppe Strangi Case Western Reserve University, USA, and CNR-NANOTEC, University of Calabria Italy

Brief Bio
Giuseppe Strangi (http://physics.case.edu/faculty/giuseppe-strangi/) is a Professor of Physics and an Ohio Research Scholar in Advanced Materials Surfaces at Case Western Reserve University, where he also leads the Nanoplasm Labs (https://nanoplasmlab.com/). In addition, he serves as a Senior Scientist at the National Research Council (CNR) in Italy. Strangi is the President of the Scientific Committee for the "Con il Cuore" Foundation, which supports cancer research across Europe, and he is the General Chair of the NANOPLASM International Conference, dedicated to exploring new frontiers in plasmonics and nanophotonics. His research spans condensed matter physics, nanophotonics, plasmonics, and cancer nanotechnology. Strangi is a Fellow of Optica (formerly the Optical Society of America), as well as the Institute for the Science of Origins and the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center at CWRU.

Abstract
In recent years, significant interest has emerged in the inverse design1 of artificial layered heterostructures for photonic applications2. Specifically, the unique optical properties of near-zero permittivity (ENZ) metamaterials have enabled the exploration of novel physical effects and mechanisms. In this presentation, I will focus into how thin film photonics harnesses the potential of Fano resonances3-5. By layering metal-dielectric thin films, we can create a distinct type of optical coating that exhibits photonic Fano resonance, referred to as a Fano-resonant optical coating (FROC). We extend the concept of coupled mechanical oscillators to thin-film nanocavities, shedding light on semi-transparent FROCs that can both transmit and reflect the same color, akin to a beam splitter filter. This remarkable property is beyond the capabilities of conventional optical coatings.

INVITED SPEAKERS

• Guillermo Acuna from Department of Physics, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
• Giussepe Leo from Université Paris Cité & CNRS
• Alejandro Manjavacas from Instituto de Óptica (IO-CSIC), Spain
• Andrey B. Evlyukhin from Institute of Quantum Optics, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany
• Alberto Curto from Ghent University - imec, Belgium
• Jaime Gómez Rivas from Institute for Complex Molecular Systems, and Eindhoven Hendrik Casimir Institute, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
• Antonio Garcia-Martin from Instituto de Micro y Nanotecnología, IMN-CNM, CSIC, Spain
• Vincenzo Amendola from Chemical Sciences, University of Padova, Italy
• Christos Tserkezis, from POLIMA, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
• Josep Canet-Ferrer from ICMol-The Institute of Molecular Science (University of Valencia), Spain
• Pablo Albella from Department of Applied Physics (Optics), University of Cantabria, Spain
• Sven Burger from Zuse Institute in Berlin, Germany
• Michele Celebrano from Physics Department, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
• Jose Sanchez Gil from Instituto de Estructura de la Materia (CSIC), Spain
• Giorgio Volpe from University College London
• Constantino de Angelis from University of Brescia
• Leonardo Scharavelli from the Department of Chemistry, University of Cantabria
• Giancarlo Soavi from Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
• Maria Grazia Donato from Istituto per i Processi Chimico-Fisici, CNR-IPCF, Italy
• Antonio Kuzyk from Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, Finland
• Angela Barreda from Displays and Photonic Application Group, UC3M, Spain
• Manuel Marqués from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
• Javier Martin-Sanchez from NanoScience Group, Universidad de Oviedo, Spain
• Yael Gutiérrez from Department of Applied Physics (Optics), University of Cantabria, Spain
• Antonio Fernandez-Dominguez from the Department of Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
• Konstantinos Dazkalakis from Materials Engineering Group, University of Turku, Finland
• Paolo Biagioni from Politecnico di Milano, Italy
• Giancarlo Soavi from Abbe Institute, Jena University, Germany
• Giuseppe Strangi from Case University, USA
• Yonatan Sivan from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

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