Colloquium

Plasmonics

Prof. K. Kempa
Boston College
Department of Physics
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Higgins 310, 4 pm

Plasmonics has been a very active field of research in recent years. It involves collective excitations of free carriers in a variety of plasmas. Discovered by Irving Langmuir and Lewi Tonks in the 1920s in gaseous plasmas, plasma oscillations have been extensively studied also in metals and doped semiconductors in the second half of the last century. Nanotechnology helped to revive the field in recent years. This talk will give a brief history with the focus on the condensed matter systems, as well as a biased review of recent results. The topics will include early studies of bulk plasmons in metals, surface plasmons, plasmons in thin films and semiconductor heterojunctions, and plasmon instabilities in non-equilibrium plasmas. Plasmonics studies in various selected nanoscopic systems, including nanoparticles, photonic and polaritonic crystals, will also be discussed.