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Advanced Optical Materials

Fluorescent Proteins: Strong Coupling in Fully Tunable Microcavities Filled with Biologically Produced Fluorescent Proteins (Advanced Optical Materials 1/2017)

Christof Peter Dietrich, Anja Steude, Marcel Schubert, Jürgen Ohmer, Utz Fischer, Sven Höfling, Malte C. Gather

Published Jan 1, 2017• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Biologically produced fluorescent protein molecules emitting green or red light are mixed and inserted into high quality optical resonators, by C. P. Dietrich, S. Höfling, M. C. Gather, and co-workers in article number 1600659, to study strong coupling between photons and the excited state of the protein molecule. The mixing ratio and the size of the resonator provide two independent handles for tuning light–matter coupling.

DOI
10.1002/adom.201770007

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Biologically produced fluorescent protein molecules emitting green or red light are mixed and inserted into high quality optical resonators, by C. P. Dietrich, S. Höfling, M. C. Gather, and co-workers in article number 1600659, to study strong coupling between photons and the excited state of the protein molecule. The mixing ratio and the size of the resonator provide two independent handles for tuning light–matter coupling.
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Optical microcavities are structures which confine light to a small region in the range of one wavelength. The radiation of a quantum emitter is coupled to cavity resonances which leads to an optical confinement of the broadband fluorescence. A practical design for this single-mode microcavity is formed by two silver mirrors enclosing a transparent dielectric medium with single quantum emitters. Steiner et al. have shown that the fluorescence spectra and decay lifetimes of single molecules in this Fabry-Perot type microcavity are strongly dependent on the resonator length.