Related papers: Mapping complex optical light field distributions …
Optical detection and spectroscopy of single molecules has become an indispensable tool in biological imaging and sensing. Its success is based on fluorescence of organic dye molecules under carefully engineered laser illumination. In this…
Circular dichroism spectroscopy is an essential technique for understanding molecular structure and magnetic materials, but spatial resolution is limited by the wavelength of light, and sensitivity sufficient for single-molecule…
We theoretically demonstrate direction-dependent polarization conversion efficiency, yielding unidirectional light transmission, through a two-layer nanostructure by using the angular spectrum representation of optical near-fields. The…
We propose a general theoretical scheme for the investigation of light emitted from nano- and micrometric structures of arbitrary shape and composition. More specifically, the proposed fully three-dimensional approach allows to derive the…
Nanophotonic platforms in theory uniquely enable < femtomoles of chiral biological and pharmaceutical molecules to be detected, through the highly localised changes in the chiral asymmetries of the near-fields that they induce. However,…
Light is a union of electric and magnetic fields, and nowhere is their complex relationship more evident than in the near fields of nanophotonic structures. There, complicated electric and magnetic fields varying over subwavelength scales…
Fluorescent molecules are versatile nanoscale emitters that enable detailed observations of biophysical processes with nanoscale resolution. Because they are well-approximated as electric dipoles, imaging systems can be designed to…
The vectorial structure of light, amplitude, phase, and polarization, encodes essential information for applications ranging from super-resolution microscopy to high-capacity communications and quantum information processing. However,…
The combination of single photon emitters (quantum dots) and tailored metal nanoparticles with defined size and shape allows a detailed study of the interaction between light and matter. The enhanced optical near-field of the nanoparticles…
We use fluorescent nanospheres as scalar detectors for the electric-field intensity in order to probe the near-field of an optical tip used in aperture-type near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM). Surprisingly, the recorded…
Structured light, when strongly focused, generates highly confined vectorial electromagnetic field distributions which may feature a polarization component along the optical axis. Manipulating and detecting such 3D light fields is…
Spontaneous emission spectra of two initially excited closely spaced identical atoms are very sensitive to the strength and the direction of the applied magnetic field. The relevant schemes are considered that ensure the determination of…
We demonstrate theoretically and experimentally that the three-dimensional orientation of a single fluorescent nano-emitter can be determined by polarization analysis of the emitted light (while excitation polarization analysis provides…
Strong light-matter interactions facilitate not only emerging applications in quantum and non-linear optics but also modifications of materials properties. In particular the latter possibility has spurred the development of advanced…
We present a new scheme for performing optical spectroscopy on single molecules. A glass capillary with a diameter of 600 nm filled with an organic crystal tightly guides the excitation light and provides a maximum spontaneous emission…
Increasing the complexity of a light field through the advanced manipulation of its degrees of freedom (DoF) provides new opportunities for fundamental studies and technologies. Correlating polarization with the light's spatial or spectral…
In this letter, we demonstrate the experimental mapping of the longitudinal magnetic and electric optical fields with a standard scanning microscope that involves a high numerical aperture far-field objective. The imaging concept relies…
At the most fundamental level, the interaction between light and matter is manifested by the emission and absorption of single photons by single quantum emitters. Controlling light--matter interaction is the basis for diverse applications…
Chiral fields with large optical chirality are very important in chiral molecules analysis, sensing and other measurements. Plasmonic nanostructures have been proposed to realize such super chiral fields for enhancing weak chiral signals.…
Light scattering from chiral plasmonic structures can create near fields with an asymmetry greater than the equivalent circularly polarised light, a property sometimes referred to as superchirality. These near fields with enhanced chiral…