Recently, nanoplasmonics has risen from a relatively obscure science to a prominent field of research. Surface plasmons can be envisioned as quasi-two-dimensional electromagnetic excitations, propagating along a dielectric-metal interface and having the field components decaying exponentially with penetration depth as small as several nanometers into both neighboring media. Surface plasmon-based circuits merge electronic and photonic circuits at the nanoscale and create the ability to combine the superior technical advantages of photonics and electronics on the same chip. Another related topic is metamaterials. Both nanoplasmonics and metamaterials deal with tailored metal/dielectric and metal/semiconductor nanostructures, for example, material with negative permittivity. Recent advances in metamaterials have promised unprecedented flexibility in obtaining materials with very complex specifications, including independent control of the permittivity and permeability with desired (positive, zero, or negative) values, anisotropy, and distribution. Generally speaking, the permittivity (or permeability) of a metamaterial can be rendered to be an almost arbitrary space-dependent tensor, which can achieve material performances beyond the limitations of conventional, naturally occurring composites. Potential applications of metamaterials are diverse and include remote aerospace applications, sensor detection and infrastructure monitoring, smart solar power management, public safety, radomes, high-frequency battlefield communication, and lenses for high-gain antennas, improving ultrasonic sensors, and even shielding structures from earthquakes.

We invite investigators to contribute original research articles as well as review articles that will stimulate the continuing efforts to understand various aspects of nanoplasmonics and metamaterials. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Low-loss plasmonic waveguides
• Deep subwavelength waveguiding
• Active plasmonic devices
• Plasmonic lasers and amplifiers
• Plasmonic modulators and switches
• Plasmons on graphene
• Spinplasmonics
• Plasmonic photonic coupling and interaction between surface plasmons
• Optical antennas at nanoscale
• Nonlinear effects in nanoplasmonics and metamaterials
• Super resolution imaging
• Novel metamaterials and applications

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijo/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable:

Manuscript Due	Friday, 6 April 2012
First Round of Reviews	Friday, 29 June 2012
Publication Date	Friday, 24 August 2012

Lead Guest Editor

• Zhaolin Lu, Microsystems Engineering Program, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY 14623, USA

Guest Editors

• Xiaoyue Huang, Seagate Technology, 7801 Computer Avenue South, Bloomington, MN 55435, USA
• Mark Mirotznik, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19710, USA
• Georgios Veronis, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Center for Computation and Technology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA
• Qiwen Zhan, Electro-Optics Graduate Program, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH 45469, USA