Integrated Nanophotonics: Platforms, Devices, and Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Integrated nanophotonics has become a central engine for next-generation photonic systems by enabling subwavelength light confinement, engineered dispersion, and on-chip integration of diverse optical functions. As the field moves beyond discrete device demonstrations toward scalable and application-oriented photonic microsystems, key advances are increasingly driven by platform-level innovation, heterogeneous integration, and the emergence of new waveguide materials that jointly expand bandwidth, functionality, and manufacturability. In parallel, the rise in flexible and deformable photonics is opening a distinctive frontier where integrated photonic circuits can operate reliably under bending and conformal deployment, enabling new opportunities across sensing, communications, and bio-applications.

This Special Issue titled “Integrated Nanophotonics: Platforms, Devices, and Applications” welcomes cutting-edge basic, methodological, and applied research contributions (regular papers, reviews, and short communications) that address enabling technologies and system demonstrations across integrated nanophotonic platforms. In particular, we invite submissions focusing on the following:

• Flexible photonic platforms and applications, including materials, fabrication, applications, packaging, and optical interconnection;
• Nanophotonics-integrated devices, such as high-performance sensors, modulators, and photodetectors with improved efficiency, bandwidth, stability, and integration density;
• Nanophotonics computing and optical communications, spanning on-chip signal processing, programmable photonics, and system architectures for high-capacity interconnects;
• Heterogeneous integration approaches, including wafer-/chip-level bonding, transfer printing, and co-integration of active/passive materials for multifunctional photonic circuits;
• Emerging nanophotonics-integrated materials, enabling new modalities in switches, modulation, detection, nonlinearity, broadband response, and energy efficiency;
• Nanophotonics-integrated and miniaturized spectrometers, with emphasis on spectral engines and compact spectral sensing modules.

Dr. Zequn Chen
Dr. Chen Wei
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Photonics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.