Nanophotonics and nanofibers
Limin Tong and Eric Mazur
in Handbook for Fiber Optic Data Communications: A Practical Guide to Optical Networking, Ed. Casimer DeCusatis, pp. 713-728 (Academic Press, Burlington, MA, 2008).
Nanophotonics is a fusion of photonics and nanotechnology, and is defined as nanoscale optical science and technology that includes nanoscale confinement of radiation, nanoscale confinement of matter, and nanoscale photoprocesses for nanofabrication [1.], [2.] and [3.]. While photonics has been widely used for fiber-optic data communication for decades, the application of nanotechnology for optical communication is an emerging technology. The basic motivation for incorporating photonics with nanotechnology is spurred by the requirement of increased integration of photonic devices for a variety of applications such as higher data transmission rates, faster response, lower energy consumption, and denser data storage . For example, to reach an optical data transmission rate as high as 10Tb/s, the size of photonic matrix switching devices should be reduced to 100-nm scale .