From classical optics to nanophotonics

International audienceA long list of philosophers/scientists allowed understanding the nature of light and of its interaction with matter, the development of optical instruments and of lasers. We can briefly cited some of them who are known to bring important steps in these progresses. By trying to explain vision, Greek like Euclid (300 B.C.), Hero (60 A.D.), Ptolemy (120 A. D.) and then the Arab scientist Alhazen (1000 A.D.) described light propagation, till 13th century Italian glassworkers made lenses that were used for spectacles. Kepler (1604) decribed the propagation of light through lenses with geometrical optics, and he applied his studies to the eye. Lippershey invented the telescope soon before Galileo (1609) produced his own telescope and started to study planets and moons. Snell, Descartes(~1637), Newton (~1704) , Grimaldi (~1665), Huygens (~1690), Euler (1746), Gauss (~1800), Young (1803), Fraunhofer(1814), Fresnel (1819) , Abbe (1887)... allowed to deepen the understanding of classical optics by extending the notion of rays to the notion of waves