Organic Nanophotonics

Photonics concerns the generation, transport, processing and detection of light. It underlies a large amount of industrial activity, mainly devoted to information technology, telecommunications, environmental monitoring, biomedical science and instrumentation. The field has received a powerful impetus with the introduction of nanoscale concepts. Moreover, organic materials now appear as key components in photonic devices such as light-emitting diodes, integrated lasers, or photovoltaic cells. Organic molecular systems offer unique opportunities in nanophotonics since both top-down and bottom-up strategies can be pursued towards the nanoscale. This text gathers the proceedings of the NATO advanced research workshop on "Organic Nanophotonics", held in Aix-en-Provence, France, August 25-29, 2002. It constitutes a snapshot of the state of the art in the novel, emerging research area of nanophotonics based on organic molecules and materials.