Metallic nanoparticles are attractive structures for nanosensing because they exhibit collective oscillations of their conduction electrons, so-called surface plasmon resonances. The presence of a plasmon resonance makes them easily detectable in an optical microscope, even down to the level of single particles. I will discuss two modes of sensing based on plasmonic nanoparticles: mechanical and optical sensing. For mechanical sensing we exploit the sensitivity of the acoustic vibration frequencies to material deposition. For optical sensing we probe shifts of the plasmon resonance caused by changes in the local refractive index. I will show recent results where we achieved single-molecule sensitivity that we used to statistically analyze the kinetics of antibody-antigen interactions.


Wednesday, October 28, 2015, 12:00. Seminar Room

Hosted by Prof. Niek van Hulst