Local-field effects in nanostructured photonic materials

It is well known that the optical response of a medium depends on the local field acting on an individual emitter rather than on the macroscopic average field in the medium. The local field depends very sensitively on the microcopic environment in an optical medium. It is thus possible to achieve a significant control over the local field by intermixing homogeneous materials on a nanoscale to produce composite optical materials. A combination of local-field effects and nanostructuring provides new degrees of freedom for manipulating the optical properties of photonic materials. Especially interesting opportunities open up in the nonlinear optical regime where the material response depends on the local-field correction as a power law. The goal of this review is to present a conceptual overview of the influence of local-field effects on the optical properties of photonic materials, both homogeneous and composite. We also give a summary of recent achievements in controlling the optical properties by local-field effects and nanostructuring. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America