We have fabricated nanometer-scale gold dipole antennas designed to be resonant at optical frequencies. On resonance, strong field enhancement in the antenna feed gap leads to white-light supercontinuum generation. The antenna length at resonance is considerably shorter than one-half the wavelength of the incident light. This is in contradiction to classical antenna theory but in qualitative ac...

Focusing electromagnetic energy to subwavelength dimensions has become an increasingly active field of research for a variety of applications such as heat-assisted magnetic recording, nanolithography, and nanoscale optical characterization of biological cells and single molecules using the near-field scanning optical microscopy technique. Double-sided surface plasmons in a metal-insulator-metal...

We demonstrate the design, fabrication and characterization of mid-infrared photonic crystal waveguides on a silicon-on-insulator platform, showing guided modes in the wavelength regime between 2.9 and 3.9 µm. The characterization is performed with a proprietary intra-cavity Optical Parametric Oscillator in a free space optical setup and with a fibre coupled setup using a commercial Quantum Cas...

We present the full experimental reconstruction of Gaussian entangled states generated by a type-II optical parametric oscillator below threshold. Our scheme provides the entire covariance matrix using a single homodyne detector and allows for the complete characterization of bipartite Gaussian states, including the evaluation of purity, entanglement, and nonclassical photon correlations, witho...

We report on the fabrication and characterization of thick UV-patternable hybrid sol-gel films by spin coating using a modified sol-gel process. Thick coating of 25 microns with crack-free surface can be produced by one spin coating step. Thick layers of more than 100 μm can be obtained with a multi-coating process. Characterization using different techniques including optical microscope and at...

Measurements of weak, embedded index structures are important for material characterization of photopolymers, glass and other optical materials as well as for characterization of fabricated structures such as waveguides. We demonstrate an optical diffraction tomography system capable of measuring deeply-buried, weak, fabricated index structures written in a homogeneous volume. High-fidelity cro...

Diffusing photons provide information about the optical properties of turbid media. In biological tissues these optical properties may be correlated to physiological parameters, enabling one to probe effectively the physiological states of tissue for abnormalities such as tumors and hemorrhages. We show that positional uncertainty in the source and detector lead to significant random errors tha...

As for carbon nanotubes, optical and vibrational spectroscopy in particular Raman and luminescence spectroscopy play an important role for the characterization of BN nanotubes. In this chapter we review, from a theoretical view point, the different spectroscopic techniques that are currently used for BN-nanotubes and make a close link with available experimental data. We summarize experimental ...

We present the experimental results for scattering intensity which arises from illumination of turbid medium with laser light for characterizing the different types of particles. The imaging of tissue like phantom provides the possibility of modeling the laser tissue interaction parameters for the diagnostic of malignant disease and determining the optical properties of a material. Analytical m...

A novel fiber-optic-based method for simultaneous time- and wavelength-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy for the rapid diagnosis of diseased tissue is demonstrated. By combining multiple bandpass and dichroic filters (405/40, 460/50, and 550/50) with different lengths of optical fiber (1, 10, and 19 m) acting as an optical delay this system enables the near real-time acquisition and characteri...