Phase control of a laser beam by a single molecule

In this paper, the authors report on a phase shift measurement of 3°, imprinted on a laser beam by a single molecule in the solid state. The realization of a single-molecule electro-optic modulator was also shown and the applications of this work in microscopy and signal processing were discussed. Utilizing a direct focusing geometry (i.e. without a cavity) can be attractive both in terms of its fundamental simplicity as well as in terms of practical integration and application.