Photonic Approaches for Single-Molecule Sensing and Spectroscopy

Photonic structures offer the ability to fundamentally alter how light interacts with matter. I will tell several stories of how these abilities can be leveraged for new ways to perform measurements on single molecules. In one story, I will show how the increased light-molecule interactions in high-finesse fiber Fabry-Pérot microcavities can be used to detect and hydrodynamically profile individual biomolecules as small as single amino acids in a manner that is entirely label-free. Applications discussed will range from elucidating biomolecule-biomolecule interactions to drug discovery to protein sequencing. In another story, I will show how we are developing new fabrication routes to create highly intricate topologically non-trivial nanophotonic crystals as platforms for new forms of molecular spectroscopy. Other stories may include a fractionation-free way of characterizing the dispersity of polymers and observing transient intermediates in molecular C-C bond forming catalysts.

Speaker: Randall Goldsmith, University of Wisconsin, Madison