At the end of day one the surface plasmon photonics conference here in Israel is meeting my expectations. The first two plenary talks were excellent and contrasting.
In my last post I discussed not attending a conference on the field of plasmonics for a couple of years and I was looking to see the changes. Vlad Shalaev, a pioneer in this field, presented a great slide about the ‘hype of plasmonics’ and how this compares to the Gartner cycle shown below.
In his talk he discussed that the peak of expectations in plasmonics happened in 2010 and now in 2015 this research community is entering into its slope of enlightenment. It seems I maybe didn’t miss so much. I can’t show you Professor Shalaev’s excellent slide but it has been published in the RSC’s Faraday Discussions . Professor Shalaev’s hot tip on what to follow is quantum applications of plasmonics.
Whereas a few years ago the talks were all about loss there has been more discussion of gain on day one, materials have not changed so much but improved processing of them has. The slope of enlightenmenty is generating more talk of applications such as sensors, data storage, energy conversion and bio-medical applications.
I’m looking forward to what the rest of the conference has to offer.
“Gartner Hype Cycle” by Jeremykemp at English Wikipedia. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Categories: Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics
Image of the Week: Flexible, polarization-controllable diffusion metasurface with optical transparency 
Quantifying plasma chemistry products at atmospheric pressure 
Image of the Week: Direct writing using 3D printed, melt electrospun fibres 
Image of the week: Coalescence of Pickering emulsions. 
JPhys+ 
