Enabling Ultrasensitive Optical Measurements with Plasmonics

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Metallic nanostructures have enabled critical advances in a variety of applications ranging from photonic devices that perform a logical function, medical research to better target tumors for further localized photothermal treatment, solar cells technology to high sensitivity optical sensors. An electromagnetic field such as a laser light confined in the vicinity of a single silver or gold nanoparticle or an ensemble of interacting particles, displays resonances that are dependent on the opto-geometric properties of the nanostructure. Under the right experimental conditions, the excitation of such local resonance can yield enhancement of the electromagnetic field by several orders of magnitude which can be exploited for ultrahigh sensitivity optical spectroscopy. Its application in materials science and biomaterial is tremendous offering improved spatial resolution and sensitivity at a level down to the detection of a single molecule. This research program aims at providing solutions to enable ultrahigh sensitivity measurements in optical spectroscopy and is articulated along four principal objectives: