Research

Our research program is currently focused on the area of plasmonics. Plasmonics is concerned with phenomena involving surface plasmon-polariton (SPP) waves, which propagate along the interface of a metal and a dielectric at optical wavelengths (for example).

Plasmonics is currently undergoing a resurgence in popularity as evidenced by a sharp increase in the number of articles published per year on the subject, and by an increase in the number of participants to conferences focused on this area, such as the International Conference Series on Surface Plasmon Photonics and the Gordon Research Conferences on plasmonics. This resurgence is due to a number of factors including improvements in micro- and nano-fabrication techniques, the existence of many unresolved problems, and the interesting peculiarities of SPP’s (e.g.: resonance, surface sensitivity, sub-wavelength confinement, extraordinary transmission,…). There are also great opportunities for new applications.

This presentation and the papers listed under the Publications link describe some of our recent work. Various research projects involving surface plasmon waveguides and components are currently underway:

   Integrated optics based on surface plasmons (NSERC)
   Active devices based on surface plasmons (NSERC)
   Fabrication of surface plasmon waveguides on membranes (CPFR, Spectalis)
   Sensing using long-range surface plasmons (OCE, Spectalis)