The optical properties of arrays of nanoholes and nanoslits in Al films were investigated both numerically and experimentally. The choice of Al was based on its low cost and ease of processing, in addition to the fact that it has a higher plasma frequency than gold or silver, leading to lower optical losses at wavelengths of 400 to 500nm.

We investigated optical transmission characteristics of aluminum thin films with periodic hole arrays in sub-wavelength. We divided white light into several color spectra using a color filter based on the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) utilizing aluminum showing high plasma frequency. By optimizing a hole-array period, hole shape, polarization and index difference of two surface, transmittance of 30% and full-width at half-maximum of around 100 nm were achieved.

This paper reviews our recent activities on nanophotonics based on a photonic crystal (PC)/quantum dot (QD)-combined structure for an all-optical device and a metal/semiconductor composite structure using surface plasmon (SP) and negative refractive index material (NIM). The former structure contributes to an ultrafast signal processing component by virtue of new PC design and QD selective-area-growth technologies, while the latter provides a new RGB color filter with a high precision and optical beam-steering device with a wide steering angle.

We propose an accurate modeling of the wavelength conversion process by dynamic tuning of a dielectric cavity. Since the process involves the long-distance propagation of light, the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method is not suitable for modeling of the wavelength conversion process owing to the numerical dispersion error of the FDTD method. The proposed modeling is based on the constrained interpolation profile (CIP) method, which was developed in the field of computational fluid dynamics for the purpose of reducing considerably the numerical dispersion error, and is formulated for a one-dimensional problem using an interpolation function of a higher order than that used in the original CIP method. Numerical experiments reveal that the proposed method can achieve accurate prediction of the wavelength conversion process even with a coarse grid model and is superior to both the original CIP method and the FDTD method.