Research article by: Pavel Tonkaev¹ and Yuri Kivshar^1,2

¹ITMO University, 197101, St. Petersburg, Russia,
²Nonlinear Physics Centre, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia

Abstract: Future technologies underpinning high-performance optical communications, ultrafast computations and compact biosensing will rely on densely packed reconfigurable optical circuitry based on nanophotonics. For many years, plasmonics was considered as the only available platform for nanoscale optics, but the recently emerged novel field of Mie resonant metaphotonicsprovides more practical alternatives for nanoscale optics by employing resonances in high-index dielectric nanoparticles and structures. In this mini-review we highlight some recent trends in the physics of dielectric Mie-resonant nanostructures with high quality factor (Q factor) for efficient spatial and temporal control of light by employing multipolar resonances and the bound states in the continuum. We discuss a few applications of these concepts to nonlinear optics, nanolasers, subwavelength waveguiding, and sensing.

Richard Feynman gave a remarkable talk at Caltech in 1959 called There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom. In his contribution, Feynman formulated a noble challenge:
"But I am not afraid to consider the final question as to whether, ultimately - in the great future - we can arrange the atoms the way we want; the very atoms, all the way down!"
I think we have reached that goal!

Single-photon-sources are extremely desirable devices as they can enable quantum-secure communication. But to enable a fast information exchange, a tradeoff between quantity and quality of the photons has to be considered.