The Science and Engineering of Nanoscale Optics

The field of plasmonics lies at the forefront of current revolutionary developments in optics at nanoscale dimensions, with broad applications in the fields of biology, chemistry, and engineering. Advancing these applications will require an enhanced focus on the fundamental science of plasmonics in new and exotic regimes.

This 2010 Gordon Conference on Plasmonics will focus on recent advances in fundamental and applied plasmonics. As with past conferences, this meeting will bring together top researchers and future leaders for substantial interactions between students, young speakers, and senior figures in the field. Participants should expect lively discussion during the sessions, intermingled with unstructured time where ideas move, collaborations form, and connections are made. Invited talks will cover a diverse range of topics, including active devices, coherence effects, metamaterials and cloaking, quantum optical phenomena, and plasmons in exotic media and in new wavelength regimes. At the conclusion of the conference, our final session will look forward and begin defining upcoming challenges and opportunities for plasmonics.

We expect that the 2010 conference will attract a number of senior scientists; it will also feature a large number of younger participants, including graduate students and postdocs. A highlight of the past two Plasmonics conferences has been the stimulating poster sessions, and we encourage participants to share their work in this way again next summer. We also encourage these young scientists to attend the associated GRS (note that a separate application is required). The setting of Colby College affords many opportunities for informal scientific conversations, as well as afternoon activities both on the 714 acre campus, and in the neighboring town of Waterville. Scientific session titles and individual speaker names will be listed here as they are confirmed. This is the third Plasmonics GRC following the highly successful meetings in 2006 and 2008.