Editors' Picks Collection: Plasmonics and Metamaterials

Since 1997, Optics Express has been a respected journal emphasizing scientific and technological innovations in optics and photonics. To honor its 20th anniversary year, the editors of Optics Express selected articles from a variety of topic areas that have been key to the Journal's success.

Note that this selection of articles is not meant to be exhaustive but authoritative, showing that significant contributions were made and continue to be made in these areas.


  1. Nanofocusing in laterally tapered plasmonic waveguides
    Ewold Verhagen, Albert Polman, and L. (Kobus) Kuipers
    Opt. Express 16(1) 45-57 (2008)
  2. The Ag dielectric function in plasmonic metamaterials
    Vladimir P. Drachev, Uday K. Chettiar, Alexander V. Kildishev, Hsiao-Kuan Yuan, Wenshan Cai, and Vladimir M. Shalaev
    Opt. Express 16(2) 1186-1195 (2008)
  3. Compensation of loss in propagating surface plasmon polariton by gain in adjacent dielectric medium
    M. A. Noginov, V. A. Podolskiy, G. Zhu, M. Mayy, M. Bahoura, J. A. Adegoke, B. A. Ritzo, and K. Reynolds
    Opt. Express 16(2) 1385-1392 (2008)
  4. Engineering the optical response of plasmonic nanoantennas
    Holger Fischer and Olivier J. F. Martin
    Opt. Express 16(12) 9144-9154 (2008)
  5. Towards the lasing spaser: controlling metamaterial optical response with semiconductor quantum dots
    E. Plum, V. A. Fedotov, P. Kuo, D. P. Tsai, and N. I. Zheludev
    Opt. Express 17(10) 8548-8551 (2009)
  6. A silicon-based hybrid plasmonic waveguide with a metal cap for a nano-scale light confinement
    Daoxin Dai and Sailing He
    Opt. Express 17(19) 16646-16653 (2009)
  7. The transmission characteristics of surface plasmon polaritons in ring resonator
    Tong-Biao Wang, Xie-Wen Wen, Cheng-Ping Yin, and He-Zhou Wang
    Opt. Express 17(26) 24096-24101 (2009)
  8. Light trapping in ultrathin plasmonic solar cells
    Vivian E. Ferry, Marc A. Verschuuren, Hongbo B. T. Li, Ewold Verhagen, Robert J. Walters, Ruud E. I. Schropp, Harry A. Atwater, and Albert Polman
    Opt. Express 18(S2) A237-A245 (2010)
  9. Plasmon-induced transparency with detuned ultracompact Fabry-Perot resonators in integrated plasmonic devices
    Zhanghua Han and Sergey I. Bozhevolnyi
    Opt. Express 19(4) 3251-3257 (2011)
  10. Nanoplasmonics: past, present, and glimpse into future
    Mark I. Stockman
    Opt. Express 19(22) 22029-22106 (2011)
  11. A perfect absorber made of a graphene micro-ribbon metamaterial
    Rasoul Alaee, Mohamed Farhat, Carsten Rockstuhl, and Falk Lederer
    Opt. Express 20(27) 28017-28024 (2012)