Place a fluorescing molecule next to a gold nanosphere and it lights up like a supernova.<\/p>\n
That’s what Vahid “Thou” Sandoghdar and his cronies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich are telling ya’ll today. This simple trick turns a molecular matchflame into a full blown roman candle.<\/p>\n
Here’s what’s goin on. The light emitted from the molecule causes waves of electrons called plasmons to surf over the surface of the sphere. If the frequency is just right, yer get a resonant effect that boosts the emission. Thou Sand reckons he can boost the fluorescence by a factor of ten thousand.<\/p>\n
Strap your gold nanosphere to the end of a probe, scan it across a surface and as the sphere passes by, individual molecules will flare up like herpes on a party campus (ah mention no names, Arizona State, cough) . Molecules have a habit of a-movin and a-migratin when you ain’t looking so having a way to spot them again is surely gonna be handy for anybody building molecular machines and computers.<\/p>\n