Nanocavities and Molecular Optomechanics

We work on Molecular Cavity Optomechanics, Nanoscale thermometry in plasmonic cavities, Light-driven phenomena in plasmonic nanocavities, Molecular transport and spectroscopy in plasmonic nanojunctions and Optomechanical frequency upconversion in nanocavities:

Ever since its discovery in 1974 [1], SERS has revolutionized the field of Raman spectroscopy by demonstrating sensitivities down to single molecule [2,3]. However, precise mechanisms which govern SERS are still poorly understood, in particular under strong laser driving. To address this issue, we fabricate well-defined nanocavities with sub-2-nm gaps and sharp plasmonic resonances, which (…)

Benefiting from the plasmonic resonance capable of nanoscale light confinement, metallic gap nanoantennas (and their coupling with low-dimensional materials) have been demonstrated a powerful platform to research a variety of novel phenomena with unprecedented sensitivity, including, plasmon-exciton strong coupling, enhanced optical nonlinearities and molecular cavity optomechanics.In this project, we are developing a molecular platform coupled (…)

This project is focused on fundamental studies of molecular nanojunctions by combining electronic transport and optical spectroscopy techniques. We use a mechanically controlled break-junction (MCBJ, Fig. 1) to actuate plasmonic bowtie nano-antennas with sub-1-nm, tunable gaps, which is suitable for dynamic surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) studies. We also fabricate novel molecular nanojunctions using laser (…)

Our aim is to study light-induced phenomena in plasmonic nanocavities where light is confined to subwavelength mode volumes by localized surface plasmon resonances. We fabricated nanoparticle on mirror (NPoM) nanocavities and studied the effect of the self-assembled monolayer on the optical properties of the NPoM structures, finding that an ordered and well-organized monolayer of molecules (…)

The aim of this project is to study light-matter interaction under the extreme field confinement as obtained in plasmonic cavities such as Nanoparticles-on-Mirror (NPoMs). Biphenyl-4-thiol molecules embedded in the gap region of such structures are being studied as multimode molecular thermometers interrogated remotely by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), while the electronic temperature is assessed using (…)