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IEEE Lasers and Electro-Optics Society Annual Meeting (LEOS)

Quantum Optical Experiments with Single Molecules

Ilja Gerhardt, G. Wrigge, Jaesuk Hwang, G. Zumofen, Vahid Sandoghdar

Published Oct 1, 2007• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We introduce a cryogenic experiment where the direct signature of a single molecule on an incident laser beam becomes evident. We use both near-field and far-field optics to achieve strong extinction effects larger than 10%.
DOI
10.1109/leos.2007.4382546

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In this paper direct measurements of light extinction by single molecules are reported. We use both near-field aperture tips and confocal microscopy at cryogenic temperature to tightly confine the excitation light to an area comparable to the absorption cross section of a single molecule, which results in directly observable 10% extinction of the laser beam. It is concluded that the access to both the incoherent and coherent emission of single molecules opens up a broad range of studies on the light-matter interaction of single solid state emitters.
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