Background-free 3D nanometric localization and sub-nm asymmetry detection of single plasmonic nanoparticles by four-wave mixing interferometry with optical vortices

Zoriniants, George, Masia, Francesco ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4958-410X, Giannakopoulou, Naya, Langbein, Wolfgang ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9786-1023 and Borri, Paola ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7873-3314 2017. Background-free 3D nanometric localization and sub-nm asymmetry detection of single plasmonic nanoparticles by four-wave mixing interferometry with optical vortices. Physical Review X 7 (4) , 041022. 10.1103/PhysRevX.7.041022

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Abstract

Single nanoparticle tracking using optical microscopy is a powerful technique with many applications in biology, chemistry, and material sciences. Despite significant advances, localizing objects with nanometric position precision in a scattering environment remains challenging. Applied methods to achieve contrast are dominantly fluorescence based, with fundamental limits in the emitted photon fluxes arising from the excited-state lifetime as well as photobleaching. Here, we show a new four-wave-mixing interferometry technique, whereby the position of a single nonfluorescing gold nanoparticle of 25-nm radius is determined with 16 nm precision in plane and 3 nm axially from rapid single-point measurements at 1-ms acquisition time by exploiting optical vortices. The precision in plane is consistent with the photon shot-noise, while axially it is limited by the nano-positioning sample stage, with an estimated photon shot-noise limit of 0.5 nm. The detection is background-free even inside biological cells. The technique is also uniquely sensitive to particle asymmetries of only 0.5% ellipticity, corresponding to a single atomic layer of gold, as well as particle orientation. This method opens new ways of unraveling single-particle trafficking within complex 3D architectures.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Physics and Astronomy Biosciences
Additional Information:	Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
Publisher:	American Physical Society
ISSN:	2160-3308
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 October 2017
Date of Acceptance:	29 September 2017
Last Modified:	12 Aug 2023 23:50
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/106041

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