Photonic technology employs light rather than electricity to carry information through a crystalline medium known as a photonic bandgap structure. These non-conductive photonic crystals have a periodic organization, and control the behavior of light-carrying photons just as the crystal structure and bandgap of a semiconductor will control the behavior of electrons. Photonic crystals have already begun to make their appearance in information management and communications technology, putting photonics squarely on the cusp of becoming the next major paradigm shift in these industries.

The list of the 20 most-cited papers in photonics is headed up by a pair of review articles covering the history of the technology, the relevant theoretical issues, and the important properties of photonic bandgap materials. A secondary but dominant theme in the top 20 is the synthesis and fabrication of photonic crystals and elementary photonic devices—wires, fibers, amplifiers, and lasers, in particular—and discussions of the potential for making even more advanced photonic devices. A third theme of note includes investigations and measurements of the behavior and properties of photonic crystals in one, two, or three dimensions.

Methodology

To construct this database, papers were extracted based on title-supplied keywords for Photonics. The keywords used were as follows: photonic*

The baseline time span for this database is 1992 - 2002. The resulting database contained 3,890 papers; 6,306 authors; 61 countries; 394 journals; and 1,259 institutions.

Rankings

Once the database was in place, it was used to generate the lists of top 20 papers, authors, journals, institutions, and nations, covering a time span of 1992 - 2002.

The Top 20 papers are ranked according to total cites. Rankings for author, journal, institution, and country are listed in three ways: according to total cites, total papers, and total cites/paper. The paper thresholds used to determine scientist, institution, country, and journal rankings according to total cites/paper were as follows: 21, 31, 22, and 26, respectively.

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