FEATURES | CONTENTS
OPN May 2009
Vol. 20, No. 5
Plasmonics could
provide a compact
and universal solution
to beam shaping for
semiconductor lasers
and optical-fiber-
based light sources.
[ COVER STORY ]
22 Using Plasmonics to Shape Light Beams
The field of plasmonics—in which surface plasmon resonances of metals are used
to manipulate light at the sub-wavelength scale—is transforming our understanding
of nanophotonics and integrated optics. Now, researchers are harnessing the power
of plasmonics, paving the way to wavefront engineering of laser beams.
Federico Capasso, Nanfang Yu, Ertugrul Cubukcu and Elizabeth Smythe
28 Scanned Laser Pico-Projectors:
Seeing the Big Picture (with a Small Device)
Pico-projectors are the latest technology to prove that big things often do come in
small packages. These tiny projectors are embedded in mobile devices to provide
large-screen displays that can be viewed from anywhere.
Mark Freeman, Mark Champion and Sid Madhavan
COVER: A plasmonic
collimator integrated on the
facet of a semiconductor
laser spreads out radiation
from the sub-wavelength
aperture into surface waves
that are diffracted by the
metallic grating to produce
a low-divergence beam.
[Illustration by Nanfang Yu.]
36 Solid-State Lasers: Steady Progress Through the Decades
More than three decades after solid-state lasers were developed, physicists and
engineers have made an extraordinary amount of progress, and the pace of
development is accelerating.
David C. Brown and Jerry W. Kuper
This page: A semiconductor
laser integrated with a
plasmonic polarizer emits
circularly polarized light.
[Illustration by Diandian
Mao and Nanfang Yu.]
42 A New Era for High-Energy-Density Physics
The field of high-energy-density physics is on the verge of a revolutionary event—the
achievement of fusion ignition in the laboratory. Research at the University of Rochester
and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will enable new science to be conducted
in astrophysics, materials science and laser-matter interactions.
Edward I. Moses, Robert L. McCrory, David D. Meyerhofer and Christopher J. Keane
