PhD Defense Heykel Aouani
My coworker Heykel Aouani will defend his PhD on September 08th (13:00, Ponte Amphi). The thesis is entitled "Optical nanoantennas to enhance and control molecular fluorescence in subwavelength volumes".
Thesis committee:
- Prof. Romain Quidant (ICFO Barcelona, reviewer)
- Dr Alexandre Bouhelier (ICB Dijon, reviewer)
- Prof. Xavier Letartre (INL Lyon)
- Prof. Emmanuel Fort (ESPCI Paris)
- Dr. Herve Rigneault (Fresnel Marseille)
- Dr. Jerome Wenger (thesis supervisor)
Abstract: Optical nanoantennas allow manipulation, connement and enhancement of light in subwavelength volumes. The applications of these nano-objects are related to various fields such as nano-light sources, photovoltaic, microscopy, spectroscopy ... The physical properties of these nanoantennas depending mainly on their nature, sizes and geometries, the experimental characterization of these nano-objects is essential because it allows to improve signicantly their design and amplify the electromagnetic responses. The focus of this work concerns the characterization and exploitation properties of optical nanoantennas. Several experimental characterization techniques of nanoantennas have been developed during this thesis : fluorescence correlation spectroscopy FCS, temporal dynamics monitoring of quantum dots, spectroscopy by saturated excitation of fluorescence. These techniques were applied to study different types of optical antennas : dielectric microspheres, bare nanoapertures and corrugated nanoapertures. These optical antennas have been used to effectively improve the detection of fluorescent molecules in solution, with fluorescence enhancement greater than a factor of 100, together with a directivity control of the fluorescence emission, opening new opportunities in biophotonics.