Tracking the Coupling of Single Emitters to Plasmonic Nanoantennas with Single-Molecule Super-Resolution Imaging
Tracking the Coupling of Single Emitters to Plasmonic Nanoantennas with Single-Molecule Super-Resolution Imaging
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DOI：
10.1021/acsphotonics.1c00063
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发表时间：
2020-08
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Nathan Kimmitt;E. Wertz
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Nathan Kimmitt;E. Wertz
金属纳米天线通过将光限制在非常小的体积内，使得能够在单光子水平上操纵光发射和检测。因此，耦合到这些等离子体结构的发射器是用于量子信息技术的理想候选者。然而，由于所涉及的系统的尺寸，可控地和可再现地将量子发射器放置到纳米腔中一直是具有挑战性的。在这里，我们研究了单发射到纳米腔通过光学梯度力的捕获动力学，通过使用单分子超分辨率成像和跟踪。我们发现，被困在蝴蝶结天线的纳米间隙中的分子与远离该结构的分子相比，具有更高的光稳定性和轨道长度。对于谐振天线，由于更强的光捕获效应，这些效应与非谐振情况相比被放大。这些结果为使用等离子体光学捕获将单个发射器可靠地耦合到单个纳米天线开辟了道路，从而能够进一步研究这些耦合系统。
Metal nanoantennas enable the manipulation of light emission and detection at the single photon level by confining light into very small volumes. Emitters coupled to these plasmonic structures are thus ideal candidates for usage in quantum information technology. However, controllably and reproducibly placing quantum emitters into nanocavities has been challenging due to the sizes of the systems involved. Here, we investigate the trapping dynamics of single emitters into nanocavities via optical gradient forces by using single-molecule super-resolution imaging and tracking. We show that molecules trapped in the nanogaps of bowtie antennas have increased photostability and track lengths compared to molecules farther away from the structure. For resonant antennas, these effects are magnified compared to the off-resonant case due to stronger optical trapping effects. These results open the way to using plasmonic optical trapping to reliably couple single emitters to single nanoantennas, enabling further studies of these coupled systems.