Optical vortices in nanophotonics

In the last two decades, optical vortices carried by twisted light wavefronts have attracted a great deal of interest, providing not only new physical insights into light-matter interactions, but also a transformative platform for boosting optical information capacity. Meanwhile, advances in nanoscience and nanotechnology lead to the emerging field of nanophotonics, offering an unprecedented level of light manipulation via nanostructured materials and devices. Many exciting ideas and concepts come up when optical vortices meet nanophotonic devices. Here, we provide a minireview on recent achievements made in nanophotonics for the generation and detection of optical vortices and some of their applications.