Speaker
Description
The potential applications of metallic nanoparticles, such as gold nanorods (GNRs), in sensing are very promising due to their unique optical properties. More specifically, Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) is an area of sensing which has been able to utilize the unique properties of metallic nanoparticles as a substrate for Raman signal enhancement. The Photonics Research Group at Lakehead University has developed a unique method to prepare a plasmonic structure on the surface of a multimode tapered optical fiber, referred to as a fiber nano-probe, which can be used as a SERS substrate. This plasmonic structure is based on GNRs which are distributed in a unique pattern on the surface of the tapered multimode fiber, which was achieved by optical tweezing. The fiber probe can be used for the detection of chemicals, ideally down to the molecular level. We will present our recent progress on the application of the developed nano-probe for the detection of chemicals. The effect of excitation wavelength on the SERS spectra will also be discussed. We will also describe techniques which can be used in conjunction with the nano-probe in order to collect scattered light from the sample. Finally, we will present the preliminary SERS spectra collected for the chemical Rhodamine 6G (R6G).
The research was financially supported by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and Canada Foundations for Innovation.
