Understanding the nanoscale organization of the cell membrane is a topic of high current interest. However, conventional optical microscopes fail to provide the combination of high spatial and temporal resolutions needed.

We have recently introduced optical nanoantennas to breach into these limitations and monitor nanoscale structural dynamics on biological membranes. Our latest perspective paper in J Phys Chem Letters: “Optical NanoAntenna Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy to Probe the Nanoscale Dynamics of Biological Membranes” aims to put into a broader context very recent works using nanophotonic techniques to probe the nanoscale organization of biological membranes.

For non-suscribers, it is also freely available on arXiv.

I have recently released a brief introduction to the key concepts for understanding the phenomenon of fluorescence enhancement with optical nanostructures. This document should be a chapter of a book “Plasmonics in Chemistry and Biology” edited by Nordin Felidj and Marc Lamy de la Chapelle, Pan Stanford Editions, and is already available on arXiv. It also provides a brief review of different approaches to enhance single molecule fluorescence with plasmonic and non-plasmonic nanoantennas. Lastly, it describes three main biochemical applications opened by this technique.

This book chapter is an introduction designed for students for master degree or just starting their PhD. The main novelty is figure 2 representing the figure of merit for fluorescence enhancement as a function of the publication year for different experimental results. For more advanced readers, I recommend instead the excellent review on single photon sources with nanoantennas by Femius Koenderink.

As Pantone says: "Inventive and imaginative, Ultra Violet lights the way to what is yet to come." We couldn't agree more...

The Instrumentation Prize from the Chemical Physics / Physical Chemistry division of the French Chemical and Physical Societies acknowledges the development of a new technology for chemical detection. This year, the prize has been awarded to Stéphanie Vial and Jérome Wenger for their PhoCCS technology: high sensitivity single-step biomolecular detection system from dual color nanoparticle scattering. Warm thanks to the committee and sponsors!

Book your seats for the upcoming shows:

- Ircelyon scientific day, Lyon, January 29

- Fluorescence markers for advanced microscopy, Les Houches, March 18-23

- Gold 2018 international conference, Paris, July 15-18

- NFO-15 international conference of Near-field Optics and Nanophotonics, Troyes, August 26-31

- Picoquant single molecule workshop, Berlin, September 12-14

Comment from a friend: “your rockstar analogies are nice, but you don’t have a groupie…” Hmm, that’s something I certainly need to be working on :)