Nanophotonics in which light is manipulated at subwavelength scales is emerging as one the most exciting and potentially useful areas of physical optics. I will highlight recent research in my group aimed at a new class of light-sources in which the near field and the far-field properties are fundamentally altered by means of plasmonic nanostructures and metamaterials monolithically integrated on the laser facets. As a platform to demonstrate these new beam shaping concepts, such as reduction of beam divergence, nanospot light concentration, super-focusing and polarization control, we have used mid-infrared and near-IR lasers but these techniques are broadly applicable to all solid-state lasers. I will also discuss a novel technique called nanoskiving that combines photolithography, thin-film metal deposition, and thin-film sectioning, and demonstrate its capabilities in the realization of metallic nanowires with engineered plasmon resonances and frequency selective surfaces. |
