Organizers
Howard Lee, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, USA
Andrea Marini, The University of L'Aquila, Italy
The optical response of zero refractive index or epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) materials has been a topic of significant interest since it was first supposed by Nader Engheta and his colleagues in 2006. The electromagnetic field inside media with near-zero permittivity has been shown to exhibit unique and extreme optical properties, for instance, strong electromagnetic wave confinement, enhanced quantum emission, non-reciprocal magneto-optical effects and abnormal nonlinearity. Recent studies have shown that realistic materials such as highly doped conducting oxide/metallic nitride thin films and metamaterials composed of nanoscale multilayer stacks of metals and dielectrics could exhibit these extreme ENZ properties. These materials show significant promise for the development of emerging ultrafast communication, optical imaging, bio/optical sensing and energy harvesting applications.
This special symposium reviews the latest developments, applications and current challenges in the area of ENZ photonics based on different optical materials and platforms. Novel optical materials, structural configurations and advanced optical science/functionality of zero-index/ENZ photonic structures for applications on nonlinear optics, quantum optics, optical imaging, energy harvesting and ultrafast integrated ENZ photonic devices will also be discussed.
Invited Speakers
Igal Brener, Sandia National Laboratories, USA
Epsilon Near Zero Phenomena: From Enhanced Light Matter Interaction to Ultrafast Nonlinearities
Humeyra Caglayan, Tampere University, Finland
Ultrafast Dynamics of Epsilon-Near-Zero Metamaterials
Nader Engheta, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Near-Zero-Index Photonics
Marcello Ferrera, Heriot-Watt University, UK
Near-Zero-Index Conducting Oxides for Nonlinear Photonics
Nathaniel Kinsey, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA
Nonlinear Optics at Epsilon-Near-Zero — Opportunities and Challenges
Eric Mazur, Harvard University, USA
Zero-Index Metamaterials for Extreme Optics
Jeremy Munday, University of California, Davis, USA
Improving Classical and Quantum Devices with Epsilon-Near-Zero (ENZ) Material
Vladimir Shalaev, Purdue University, USA
Quantum Meta-Photonics