170 research outputs found
Resolving the wave-vector in negative refractive media: The sign of
We address the general issue of resolving the wave-vector in complex
electromagnetic media including negative refractive media. This requires us to
make a physical choice for the sign of a square-root imposed merely by
conditions of causality. By considering the analytic behaviour of the
wave-vector in the complex plane, it is shown that there are a total of eight
physically distinct cases in the four quadrants of two Riemann sheets.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, RevTe
Optical Microscopy in the Nano-World
Scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) is an optical microscopy whose resolution is not bound to the diffraction limit. It provides chemical information based upon spectral, polarization and/or fluorescence contrast images. Details as small as 20 nm can be recognized. Photophysical
and photochemical effects can be studied with SNOM on a similar scale. This article reviews a good deal of the experimental and theoretical work on SNOM in Switzerland
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