Strong Light–Matter Interactions in Extreme Plasmonic and Mie-Resonant Systems

Collective excitations in matter, either in the form of plasmons in metals or Mie resonances in high-index dielectrics, constitute fundamental building blocks for photonic applications, including optical and quantum communications, biosensing, and polaritonic chemistry. Motivated by these prospects, this book explores excitations sustained in metallic and dielectric nanocavities and their interaction with light, quantum emitters, and swift electrons.
The book presents analytic methods for describing the strong and weak coupling between spherical nanocavities and optical transitions in matter, while also analyzing the impact of nonlocality on the coupling, when considering extremely small metallic structures. Besides light-based spectroscopy, it examines electrons as sources for probing optical excitations in matter and provides analytic tools for simulating measurements in cathodoluminescence and electron energy-loss spectroscopy.

Introduction.- Theory.- Strong Coupling in Photonics.- Weak Coupling of Nanoparticles with Quantum Emitters.- Interaction of Nanoparticles with Electron Beams.- Summary and Conclusions.

P. Elli Stamatopoulou received her Diploma in Physics from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (2017) and holds a Master’s degree from the National Technical University of Athens (2020). In 2023, she defended her Ph.D. thesis ‘Strong Light–Matter Interactions in Extreme Plasmonic and Mie-Resonant Systems’ and received her Ph.D. degree from the University of Southern Denmark. P. Elli Stamatopoulou was the recipient of the Zonta Ph.D. scholarship for women in natural science and technology in September 2021. Her research focuses on the theory of light–matter interactions involving different resonant systems and excitation sources in classical and nonclassical frameworks.