This book contains most of the contributions presented at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Nanowires, held at La Cristalera Residence Hall, Miraflores, Spain, from 23 through September 27, 1996. The workshop was co-directed by P. A. Serena and U. Landman. More than forty scientists from ten countries of Europe, the United States, and Japan attended this meeting and contributed with brilliant talks and stimulating discusions about their recent works. A total of thirty-three oral communications were given, covering the main part of topics related with the subject of the workshop. On one...

Optics at the Nanometer Scale: Imaging and Storing with Photonic Near Fields deals with the fundamentals of and the latest developments and applications of near-field optical microscopy, giving basic accounts of how and under what circumstances superresolution beyond the half- wavelength Rayleigh limit is achieved. Interferometric and fluorescence techniques are also described, leading to molecular and even atomic resolution using light. The storage of optical information at this level of resolution is also addressed.