A Review on the Materials and Applications of Nanophotonics

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Recent developments in nanotechnology have resulted in significant technical improvements in devices based on light's interaction with nanomaterials. As a result, nanophotonics has seen a significant increase in attention among researchers. The significance of low energy consuming information processing at high rates of speed has pushed the use of light for information transmission and processing forward. Nanophotonics hence introduces ways of integrating a wide range of systems that can produce, regulate, amplify and process light waves that are at superfast accelerations, as energy demands and interaction time decrease with a decrease in the particle dimensions of the nanomaterials. Nanophotonics, also known as nano-optics, is a branch of nanotechnology that studies characteristics of light at nanoscale dimensions and the interrelationships of nano-scale materials with light. Nanophotonics is a subfield of nanotechnology and a discipline of optoelectronics. On a dimension considerably smaller than the wavelength of light, it presents new opportunities for exploring concepts of interaction between the propagating light and matter. Fundamental properties of nanomaterial-light interactions, such as nanometer photon confinement and change in optical, chemical and physical properties of the material in nanorange, continue to provide numerous possibilities for real-life applications. The optical characteristics of materials can hence be enhanced by these materials having dimensions smaller than the wavelength of light. Electromagnetic waves are diffracted and dispersed if the material has dimensions in the range of the light wavelength or a portion of the wavelength, and the numerous waves produced interfere with each other. Controlling the spatial distribution of light, as well as its phase, polarization, and spectral distribution may be accomplished by understanding such materials. Moreover, materials with lower dimensions can be used to make extremely condensed sophisticated systems in a variety of industries, including information technology, optical interactions, photovoltaic energy, image processing, medical and surveillance. This chapter reviews the various materials used for nanophotonics and their properties as well as their nanophotonics application.