Jerome Wenger NanoBioPhotonics

The Mosaic group website at the Fresnel Institute has been updated, with free (electronic reprint) access to our recent publications

http://www.fresnel.fr/mosaic/publications.php

Drilling holes of nanometric dimensions in a metal film is a way conceptually simple to realize new nanophotonic components. In spite of its visible simplicity, a hole drilled in an opaque screen still inspires new perspectives of applications.

In a review published in Nature, Cyriaque Genet and Thomas Ebbesen (Institut de Science and Ingenierie Supramoleculaires, Louis Pasteur university of Strasbourg) give a detailed overview of the current understanding and exploitation of the properties of these structures. The cases of the simple nano-openings, the nano-openings surrounded with concentric engravings, and with periodic networks of nanoholes are successively approached in a very didactic way. 

The field of application of these structures is very wide, and is approached through certain specific examples. In opto-electronics, they improve the extraction of light of electroluminescent diodes and allow the development of ultrafast miniaturized silicon detectors. Biochemistry is another major domain of applications, notably through the detection of individual fluorescent molecules and enhanced infrared vibrational spectroscopy.

I’ve been quite away from the blog (and the lab!) during the last few days…

My daughter Emeline was born March 17th. She’s discovering pretty well her new world, as I am learning my new job of being father.

Nanometric apertures in a metallic film are easy to produce, robust and highly reproducible nanophotonic devices that possess a number of desirable properties for biophotonics. In a special issue of the International Journal of Materials and Product Technology, I will describe some exciting applications of sub-wavelength apertures towards the sensitive and specific characterization of molecules.
 

Outline : 1/ introducing nanoapertures, 2/ Performing FCS in reduced volumes, 3/ Single molecule analysis in a nanohole, 4/ Sub-diffraction diffusion analysis within lipidic membranes, 5/ Fluorescence emission enhancement, 6/ Biosensing applications of sub-wavelength apertures.
 

An unedited version of the paper is available on the MOSAIC website >> here.

I will attend to the next SPP meeting to be held in Dijon ( France ) next June.

In an oral contribution, I shall present our recent results towards the application of nanometric apertures in a gold film to biophotonics applications.

Link to SPP3 meeting : www.plasmonanodevices.org/spp3/