Workshop: Complex Nanophotonics at the Interface

The field of complex photonics has grown rapidly in the last decade, generating new exciting science with high technological potential, from wavefront shaping for optical imaging in biological tissue to disorder engineering for integrated photonics or photovoltaics. We think that the field and its progress will benefit from a discussion with contiguous fields on how to capitalize on emerging fundamental concepts and on how to convert them into real-world applications. The proposed workshop, "Complex Nanophotonics at the Interface", aims at generating such discussion in order to identify novel directions and to establish a community of young researchers around this theme. The workshop is indeed aimed at researchers in the early stages of their career, typically within 12 years after obtaining their Ph.D. qualification. The main objective is to bring together multidisciplinary expertise in photonics, nanotechnology, biosensors, imaging and wave physics. Participants will be limited to maintain the small-scale nature of the workshop. Beyond a scientific programme that comprises keynote talks by established researchers and a prominent poster session, the workshop will include a number of evening panel debates with science editors, outreach experts and industrialists. This unconventional format for the workshop wants to stimulate critical thinking, catalyse creativity and foster lively interactions between junior researchers of different backgrounds and fields around the shared interest in complex nanophotonics.

Photonics - and in general the use of light as a way to communicate and process information - is one of the technological milestones that is advancing innovation in modern times across many areas, from computer sciences and renewable energies to personalized healthcare and sensing technologies. Its presence in society manifests itself with applications in data storage and communication, broadband Internet, advanced microscopy, medical imaging, and defence & security.

The workshop "Complex Nanophotonics at the Interface" aims at making a long-lasting impact in photonics (its science and its applications) by generating discussion and exchange of ideas around the fields that thrive at the interface of nanophotonics and complex photonics. On the one hand, nanophotonics is the field of research that focuses on light-matter interactions on length scales smaller than the wavelength of light; among other outputs, it entails the design of advanced functional materials and of metamaterials that shows properties beyond what can be found in natural materials. Complex photonics, on the other hand, is the field dealing with collective effects such as multiple scattering and emergent optical phenomena in complex media with structure on the scale of the wavelength; its influence on biomedical imaging in scattering tissue is generating societal impact by contributing to a healthier nation.

By catalysing the formation of a community of researchers with shared interest around these fields and by favouring discussion on a common theme approached from different perspectives and backgrounds, our workshop will bring together core knowledge and best practice from different fields, and it will drive new and disruptive ideas through direct knowledge and information exchange. This holds potential for generating the impact and momentum needed to drive forward the science of complex nanophotonics along with its technological applications in the UK and beyond.