Cover Article for Materials Today July 2006

The development of chip-scale electronics and photonics has led to remarkable data processing and transport capabilities that permeate almost every facet of our lives. Plasmonics is an exciting new device technology that has recently emerged. It exploits the unique optical properties of metallic nanostructures to enable routing and manipulation of light at the nanoscale. A tremendous synergy can be attained by integrating plasmonic, electronic, and conventional dielectric photonic devices on the same chip and taking advantage of the strengths of each technology.