Juan de Torres joins the ERC team
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.
Coming soon: the corollary
Quite dusty days...
News & Views: Breaking the concentration barrier
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."
Antenna-in-box platform to enhance single molecule detection
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.