Correlative microscopy of single self-assembled nanorod dimers for refractometric sensing

Michael A. Beuwer, Peter Zijlstra* Single metallic particles and dimers of nanospheres have been used extensively for sensing, but dimers of particles provide attractive advantages because they exhibit multiple modes that can be tuned by the dimer geometry. Here, we employ correlative microscopy of single self-assembled dimers of gold nanorods to study their performance as […]

Imaging and Localization of Single Emitters near Plasmonic Particles of Different Size, Shape, and Material

Frank Bloksma, Peter Zijlstra* Colloidal plasmonic materials are increasingly used in biosensing and catalysis, which has sparked the use of super-resolution localization microscopy to visualize processes at the interface of the particles. We quantify the effect of particle–emitter coupling on super-resolution localization accuracy by simulating the point spread function (PSF) of single emitters near a […]

Research paper published in JPCC

All-Optical Imaging of Gold Nanoparticle Geometry Using Super-Resolution Microscopy Adam Taylor, Rene Verhoef, Michael Beuwer, Yuyang Wang, and Peter Zijlstra DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.7b12473 We demonstrate the all-optical reconstruction of gold nanoparticle geometry using super-resolution microscopy. We employ DNA-PAINT to get exquisite control over the (un)binding kinetics by the number of complementary bases and salt concentration, leading […]

Research paper published in Langmuir

Heterogeneous kinetics in the functionalization of single plasmonic nanoparticles Matej Horacek, Rachel E. Armstrong, and Peter Zijlstra DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.7b04027 The functionalization of gold nanoparticles with DNA has been studied extensively in solution, however these ensemble measurements do not reveal particle-to-particle differences. Here we study the functionalization of gold nanorods with thiolated single stranded DNA (ssDNA) at the single-particle […]

Review paper published in ACS Sensors

Single-Molecule Plasmon Sensing: Current Status and Future Prospects Adam B. Taylor and Peter Zijlstra ACS Sensors 2(8), 1103-1122 (2017)   Single-molecule detection has long relied on fluorescent labeling with high quantum-yield fluorophores. Plasmon-enhanced detection circumvents the need for labeling by allowing direct optical detection of weakly emitting and completely nonfluorescent species. This review focuses on […]

Research paper published in Langmuir

Tip-Specific Functionalization of Gold Nanorods for Plasmonic Biosensing: Effect of Linker Chain Length Pedro M. R. Paulo, Peter Zijlstra, Michel Orrit, Emilio Garcia-Fernandez, Tamara C. S. Pace, Ana S. Viana, and Sílvia M. B. Costa Langmuir, 2017, 33 (26), pp 6503–6510 Gold nanorods are promising platforms for label-free biosensing. We have functionalized gold nanorods with biotin thiol linkers of increasing chain length and evaluated […]