A large number of innovative technological devices use light. Examples include lighting devices (LEDs), displays (screens, connected glasses), solar cells, self-cleaning glass, optical sensors..
The development and optimization of these devices is largely based on the use of materials which, in the case of optical devices, have remarkable light-emitting properties or specific interactions with light.
Research into materials for optics has long focused on the chemical composition of materials, which determines the intrinsic properties of solids. However, over the past thirty years or so, it has become clear that another particularly interesting lever is to play on the microstructure of materials, particularly in the nanometric range. In this size range, the electronic properties of certain materials are profoundly modified, and surface effects are exacerbated. In addition, the properties of different materials associated with this scale can be coupled, since the nanometric range corresponds to a number of dimensions characteristic of physical phenomena (mean free path of carriers, dipolar couplings, magnetic couplings, etc.). Finally, the optical properties of transparency, scattering and diffraction are obviously linked to the dielectric structure of materials at various scales, including sub-wavelength.
