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Photothermal Contrast Reaches Single‐Molecule Sensitivity
Author(s) -
Basché Thomas
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.201100401
Subject(s) - photothermal therapy , absorption (acoustics) , molecule , refractive index , sensitivity (control systems) , optics , refraction , materials science , contrast (vision) , photothermal spectroscopy , chemistry , nanotechnology , optoelectronics , physics , organic chemistry , engineering , electronic engineering
The detection of single‐molecule absorption under ambient conditions is a very challenging task, because the tiny change in transmission is difficult to discriminate against the noise from the light beam and from scattering. By pushing the detection limits of photothermal contrast imaging, single‐molecule absorption has been measured by the refraction index change induced in the environment by the heat released from the molecule (see image).