Authors MacDonald (left) and Zheludev (right) in the lab at the Optoelectronic Research Centre, University of Southampton, UK. [University of Southampton]
The Van der Waals diameter of a silicon atom is 220 picometers, more than three orders of magnitude smaller than the wavelength of visible light. That being the case, could picometer-scale phenomena possibly be important to light–matter interactions and photonic applications—let alone to the extent that we can talk about a new field of “picophotonics”?