Connecting the dots: Reinventing optics for nanoscale dimensions

While optics is one of our oldest scientific tools, enabling some of the earliest advances in astronomy and biology, it is also currently one of the most dynamic and exciting areas of applied science. Developments of the past two decades in nanoscale device fabrication, nanomaterials synthesis and patterning, and advanced computational modeling capabilities have converged to fuel a revolution in optical science, leading to an entirely new tool set for optics at nanometer length scales. The work described in a recent issue of PNAS (1) illustrates the innovative use of nanoparticles as sensitive optical tools that provide a new way to measure the properties of light at nanometer-scale dimensions.