Optical Materials: Fundamental concepts and recent developments

The exploitation of the optical properties of materials is becoming a key aspect in a growing variety of fields beyond telecommunication, such as energy harvesting and saving, health care and life sciences, and sensing and monitoring. Scientists and engineers in these fields of application are very likely to face challenges associated with the understanding of light interaction with different types of materials and configurations. In this course we will present the fundamental concepts behind light propagation in materials and light-matter interaction. The optical properties of different classes of materials will be introduced and explained. This will give us the basis to discuss up-to-date research activities in the field of optical materials for light transport and transmission (optical fibres, waveguides and transparent conducting materials), light absorption and emission (photodetectors and photovoltaic devices, LEDs) and light management solutions (photonic crystals, plasmonics, metamaterials).