Plasmon-exciton systems with high quantum yield using deterministic aluminium nanostructures with rotational symmetries.

The abundance and corrosion-resistant properties of aluminium, coupled with its compatibility to silicon processing make aluminium an excellent plasmonic material for light-matter interaction in the ultraviolet-visible spectrum. We investigate the interplay of the excitation and emission enhancements of quantum dots coupled with ultra-small aluminium nanoantennae with varying rotational symmetries, where emission enhancements of ∼8 and ∼6 times have been directly measured for gammadion and star-shaped structures. We observed spontaneous emission modification in the Al antenna with a C symmetry and deduce a Purcell factor in the range of 68.

Observation of polarized gain from aligned colloidal nanorods.

In recent years, colloidal semiconductor nanorods have attracted great interest for polarized spontaneous emission. However, their polarized gain has not been possible to achieve so far. In this work we show the highly polarized stimulated emission from the densely packed ensembles of core-seeded nanorods in a cylindrical cavity.

Localized surface plasmon resonance: a unique property of plasmonic nanoparticles for nucleic acid detection.

Localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of noble metal nanoparticles (a.k.a.

High-resolution 3D imaging and quantification of gold nanoparticles in a whole cell using scanning transmission ion microscopy.

Increasing interest in the use of nanoparticles (NPs) to elucidate the function of nanometer-sized assemblies of macromolecules and organelles within cells, and to develop biomedical applications such as drug delivery, labeling, diagnostic sensing, and heat treatment of cancer cells has prompted investigations into novel techniques that can image NPs within whole cells and tissue at high resolution. Using fast ions focused to nanodimensions, we show that gold NPs (AuNPs) inside whole cells can be imaged at high resolution, and the precise location of the particles and the number of particles can be quantified. High-resolution density information of the cell can be generated using scanning transmission ion microscopy, enhanced contrast for AuNPs can be achieved using forward scattering transmission ion microscopy, and depth information can be generated from elastically backscattered ions (Rutherford backscattering spectrometry).