This special issue of Journal of Optics A: Pure and Applied Optics contains a selection of papers that were presented at the second topical meeting of the European Optical Society on Electromagnetic Optics. This meeting was held in Paris in August 2001, the first meeting having been organized by Daniel Maystre in Hyères in the south of France in September 1998. In Paris, 52 oral papers and 32 posters were presented during a four-day meeting, attracting 105 participants from 15 different countries.

The topics covered during the conference ranged from classical topics such as gratings, scattering by rough surfaces and propagation in random media to modern aspects that have attracted much attention since the last conference. New results and exciting challenges have appeared in the area of near-field optics, photonic crystals, propagation of pulses and properties of microstructures. The interplay between microstructures and surface plasmon polaritons and surface phonon polaritons has given rise to many components that can be engineered to produce extraordinary optical properties. The conference also included three invited review lectures. Emil Wolf gave an overview of recent results in coherence theory, Rodney Loudon reviewed the recent literature on the velocity of short optical pulses and Henry Benisty gave an overview of recent progress in photonic crystals.

We would like to thank the scientific committee, the sponsors of the conference, Société Française d'Optique, European Optical Society, Ministère de la Recherche, Délégation Générale à l'Armement and École Centrale Paris. We are especially indebted to the members of the organizing committee and to the staff of Société Française d'Optique, particularly to Françoise Chavel. Finally, it is our pleasure to acknowledge the efficiency of Claire Blay, the Publisher of this special issue, whose dedication made this special issue possible.

Jean-Jacques Greffet École Centrale Paris, France
Daniel Maystre Université d'Aix Marseille III, France
Guest Editors