Watching a Single Fluorophore Molecule Walk into a Plasmonic Hotspot
Abstract
Plasmonic nanoantennas allow for enhancing the spontaneous emission, altering the emission polarization, and shaping the radiation pattern of quantum emitters. A critical challenge for the experimental realizations is positioning a single emitter into the hotspot of a plasmonic antenna with nanoscale accuracy. We demonstrate a dynamic light-matter interaction nanosystem enabled by the DNA origami technique. A single fluorophore molecule can autonomously and unidirectionally walk into the hotspot of a plasmonic nanoantenna along a designated origami track. Successive fluorescence intensity increase and lifetime reduction are in situ monitored using single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy, while the fluorophore walker gradually approaches and eventually enters the plasmonic hotspot. Our scheme offers a dynamic platform, which can be used to develop functional materials, investigate intriguing light-matter interaction phenomena, and serve as prototype system for examining theoretical models.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2105.02043,
title = {Watching a Single Fluorophore Molecule Walk into a Plasmonic Hotspot},
author = {Ling Xin and Mo Lu and Steffen Both and Markus Pfeiffer and Maximilian J. Urban and Chao Zhou and Hao Yan and Thomas Weiss and Na Liu and Klas Lindfors},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2105.02043},
year = {2021}
}