Jerome Wenger NanoBioPhotonics

Juan de Torres (Spain) has joined the ERC ExtendFRET team since the beginning of September. After a successful master on dynamic light microscopy at the Fresnel Institute last July, Juan is starting his PhD on experimental nanophotonics.

Quite dusty days...

In the July issue of Nature Nanotechnology, read the News & Views about our recent work by Prof. Philip Tinnefeld.

"The combination of a plasmonic nanoantenna and a nanoaperture has merged fluorescence enhancement and spatial confinement to enable single-molecule detection at biologically relevant concentrations."

In a collaboration between the Fresnel Institute and ICFO-the Institute for Photonic Sciences, we report in Nature Nanotechnology a novel “antenna-in-box” platform for single molecule fluorescence detection with unprecedented resolutions and sensitivity. The innovative approach combines a plasmonic gap antenna for ultra-high fluorescence enhancement with a metal nanoaperture for optimized background-free operation. It allows for 1100-fold fluorescence brightness enhancement together with detection volumes down to 58 zeptoliters (1 zL = 1e-21L), realizing a gain of four orders of magnitude as compared to classical microscopes. The antenna-in-box offers a highly efficient platform for nanoscale biochemical assays with single molecule sensitivity at physiological conditions.

Read our press release here, and the article in Nature Nanotechnology.