Bioplasmonics

We are heading for employment of metal nanostructures in biomedical applications.

Along this way we develop new strategies of all-optical manipulation of metal nanoparticles. We combine the contactless control of metal nanostructures by light with the arsenal of plasmonic effects (including electromagnetic field enhancement, plasmonic heating, fluorescence quenching etc.) to study and/or trigger biological systems at the nano scale.

We investigate the photophysical properties of metallic and semiconductor nanoparticles and their application to manipulate light, heat and charge transfer at the nanoscale. We jointly use these nanoparticles with organic (bio-) molecules to investigate (bio-) physical processes in model systems as well as in living cells.

Selected recent research highlights

	Subdiffraction-Limited Milling by an Optically Driven Single Gold Nanoparticle   ACS Nano ASAP (2011)
	Optothermal Escape of Plasmonically Coupled Silver Nanoparticles from a Three-Dimensional Optical Trap   Nano Letters 11 (2011) 1770.
	Single step injection of gold nanoparticles through phospholipid membranes   ACS Nano 5 (2011) 3585.
	Laser Printing Single Gold Nanoparticles   Nano Letters 10 (2010) 4794.
	Long-Range Fluorescence Quenching by Gold Nanoparticles in a Sandwich Immunoassay for Cardiac Troponin T   Nano Letters 9 (2009) 4558.

Full Publication list

Experimental techniques:

• Steady state and time-resolved optical spectroscopy
• Optical trapping of nano-and micro particles
• Dark-field Rayleigh-scattering microscopy and spectroscopy with single nanoparticle sensitivity
• Fluorescence microscopy and spectroscopy with single molecule sensitivity
• Single molecule/nanoparticle tracking

Team

• Dr. Andrey Lutich (team leader)
  (plasmonics, optical manipulation, advanced micro-spectroscopy, biological membranes)
• Dr. Alexander Urban
  (plasmonic heating in phospholipid membranes, laser printing)
• Haojin Ba
  (metal nanoparticles in living cells)
• Jaekwon Do
  (hybrid nanocomposites)
• Michael Fedoruk
  (optothermal manipulation of metal nanoparticles)
• Silke Kirchner
  (transmembrane proteins)
• Alexander Ohlinger
  (optical trapping, simulations)
• Lizhe Liu
  (optical manipulation on cellular membranes)
• Spas Nedev
  (optical trapping, optical stamping)