ICTS

Plasmonics with its proven role in sensing, surface-enhanced spectroscopy and energy transfer is fast evolving into a vast field with much broader scope heralding unprecedented applications. Recent advances in nano fabrication techniques have opened up novel directions: nanoscale heat transfer and thermal imaging, single molecule spectroscopy, light-matter interaction at nano scales, sub-diffraction-limited quantum information processing, biomedical imaging and diagnostics, nano-antennas for LEDs, NSOM and near-field probes etc. The list is ever-growing because of the dramatic growth of our understanding of materials sciences. With the novel meta-materials one can now push the negative refraction domain to optical frequencies. Advances in graphene-plasmonics have opened up unforeseen possibilities. One is now moving closer to the dream notion of a lab-on-a-chip.

It is envisaged that the interactions at this Discussion Meeting would identify the future trends and techniques required to address these new research directions. With the facilities and know-how available with various Indian groups, the purpose of the meeting is to bring them together and initiate interactions among them to start work in the emerging areas of plasmonics. Thus, the participants will be a combination of theoreticians and experimentalists and the focus is to identify and pursue research on novel and promising directions.

In order to address the important issue of training manpower, a School on Plasmonics and Nano-optics is being organized before the Discussion Meeting. Details of the School are available here.