CLIPhTON

Light is simply better manipulated and controlled when using nanostructures. The field of nanophotonics aims at using the way matter interacts with light at these scales to achieve an unprecedented level of control on light. As light is squeezed down into nanometer scale volumes, field enhancement effects occur resulting in new optical phenomena which can be exploited to challenge existing technological limits and deliver superior photonic devices. Nanophotonics encompasses a wide variety of topics, including metamaterials, plasmonics, high resolution imaging, quantum nanophotonics and functional photonic materials. Previously viewed as a largely academic field, nanophotonics is now entering the mainstream, and will have an increasing role in the development of exciting new products, ranging from high efficiency solar cells, to personalized health monitoring devices able to detect the chemical composition of molecules at ultra low concentrations. Nanophotonics has always, since its very beginnings, and will always rely heavily on numerical modeling. Simulations often drive experiments, and are absolutely necessary to correctly interpret measurements as well as to understand the intimate physics behind an observable phenomenon. As the field of nanophotonics advances, completely new challenges arise. Recent evolution of the field has made extremely clear that better suited numerical tools are necessary, and that mastering only a specific method might not be sufficient to face future challenges. CLIPhTON aims at training a new generation of early stage researchers to become international leading experts in the computational nanophotonics field with enhanced knowledge of both the physics underlying this field and the applied/numerical mathematics theory and techniques required for designing and analyzing advanced computational methods for the complex, multiscale, possibly multi-physics systems of differential equations modeling nanoscale light/matter interactions. This will be made possible thanks to the establishment of a multidisciplinary dialogue and work between physicists, applied mathematicians and computational scientists, also actively involving research and development engineers from beneficiary and associated industrial partners.