Title :
Strong Light Extinction by a Single Molecule
Author :
Hwang, J. ; Wrigge, G. ; Gerhardt, I. ; Sandoghdar, V.
Author_Institution :
ETH Zurich, Zurich
Abstract :
In this paper direct measurements of light extinction by single molecules are reported. We use both near-field aperture tips and confocal microscopy at cryogenic temperature to tightly confine the excitation light to an area comparable to the absorption cross section of a single molecule, which results in directly observable 10% extinction of the laser beam. It is concluded that the access to both the incoherent and coherent emission of single molecules opens up a broad range of studies on the light-matter interaction of single solid state emitters.
Keywords :
extinction coefficients; fluorescence; laser beams; molecule-photon collisions; optical microscopy; coherent emission; confocal microscopy; cryogenic temperature; incoherent emission; laser beam extinction; light-matter interaction; near-field aperture tips; single molecule; solid state emitters; strong light extinction; Active matrix organic light emitting diodes; Chemistry; Fluorescence; Helium; Laboratories; Laser beams; Laser excitation; Signal to noise ratio; Solid state circuits; Temperature;
Conference_Titel :
Lasers and Electro-Optics, 2007 and the International Quantum Electronics Conference. CLEOE-IQEC 2007. European Conference on
Conference_Location :
Munich
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-0931-0
Electronic_ISBN :
978-1-4244-0931-0
DOI :
10.1109/CLEOE-IQEC.2007.4386906