This issue of Photonics Focus will look to the very small with the intense curiosity that we usually leave to quantum engineers: we focus on photonics at the nanoscale.

This inquiry into the smallest of smalls will explore innovative new diagnostics and therapies for cancer; it will examine metasurfaces that perform analog computations; it will follow the pursuit of an efficient light source from silicon nanocrystals to power future photonic circuits. The issue also gives homage to nano pioneer Richard Smalley, co-discoverer of buckminsterfullerene, whose name may have portended his future renown in a field of the exquisitely small.