Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe & European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC)

Strong Light Extinction by a Single Molecule

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

Published Jun 1, 2007• 0 citations

Abstract

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.

DOI: 10.1109/cleoe-iqec.2007.4386906

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