We employ heterodyne interferometry to investigate the effect of a single organic molecule on the phase of a propagating laser beam. We report on the first phase-contrast images of individual molecules and demonstrate a single-molecule electro-optical phase switch by applying a voltage to the microelectrodes embedded in the sample. Our results may find applications in single-molecule holography, fast optical coherent signal processing, and single-emitter quantum operations.
@article{arxiv.1103.6048,
title = {Controlling the phase of a light beam with a single molecule},
author = {M. Pototschnig and Y. Chassagneux and J. Hwang and G. Zumofen and A. Renn and V. Sandoghdar},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1103.6048},
year = {2015}
}