Plasmonik med ultrafina nanopartiklar

Plasmonics serves as a most outstanding feature of nanotechnology and is nowadays used in numerous applications within imaging, sensing and energy harvesting.

Although plasmonics has been exploited since ancient times, the understanding of the underlying interactions has not been fully achieved even after the emergence of modern nanoscience.

In particular it has been difficult to address the “ultrafine” 1 - 10 nm regime, important for applications especially in the bioimaging and biomedical areas and where neither classical nor quantum based theoretical methods apply. Recently, we derived a semi-empirical discrete interaction model for ultrafine plasmonics to bridge this gap.

It has already been used in benchmark studies concerning size, shape, material and temperature dependence of ultrafine plasmonic nanoparticles.

A goal of the present project is to implement the model in multiscale and multiphysics contexts, making it applicable to design plasmonic nanoparticles in heterogeneous environments, including organic shells and ligands, solvents and surfaces.

We will embark on a set of cutting-edge applications of ultrafine plasmonics in the areas of bioimaging, photothermal therapy and infrared light harvesting and photodetection.

We connect to collaborative experimental work including synthesis, device fabrication and measurements with feedback and validation. With this strategy we will develop novel plasmonic systems with unprecedented performance and applicability.