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In the search for neutrinoless double beta decay, understanding and reducingbackgrounds is crucial for success. An advance that could drive backgrounds tonegligible levels would be the ability to efficiently detect the bariumdaughter in $^{136}$Xe to $^{136}$Ba double beta decay, since no conventionalradioactive process can produce barium ions or atoms in xenon at significantrates. In xenon gas, the barium daughter most likely survives as a dication. Anapproach under development by the NEXT collaboration involves transporting thision from the active medium onto a coated transparent plane supporting abarium-sensitive fluorescent dye, monitored via fluorescence microscopy. Uponexposure to a barium dication, the dye will begin fluorescing, which, whencorrelated with the detection of a double electron signal at the anode, wouldconfirm double beta decay.Our results have shown that a single barium ion canbe resolved via Single Molecule Fluorescent Imaging (SMFI). The next challengeis a realization of this technique within in a large volume of xenon gas.Significant advances have recently been made: custom barium-tagging moleculesthat fluoresce strongly in the dry state when exposed to barium have beendemonstrated, and devices constructed that can observe fluorescence viain-vacuum or in-gas Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence Microscopy. Wepresent the status of this technique and the outlook for barium tagging withOn-Off switchable fluorophores, including new results with aBa$^{2+}$-selective dye that functions under our desired conditions in thevisible region and with single ion sensitivity.

Barium Tagging with Selective, Dry-Functional, Single Molecule Sensitive On-Off Fluorophores for the NEXT Experiment