Experimental proof of concept of nanoparticle-assisted STED.

Sonnefraud, Yannick; Sinclair, Hugo G; Sivan, Yonatan; Foreman, Matthew R; Dunsby, Christopher W; Neil, Mark A A; French, Paul M; Maier, Stefan A · Nano Lett · 2014

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

We imaged core-shell nanoparticles, consisting of a dye-doped silica core covered with a layer of gold, with a stimulated emission depletion, fluorescence lifetime imaging (STED-FLIM) microscope. Because of the field enhancement provided by the localized surface plasmon resonance of the gold shell, we demonstrate a reduction of the STED depletion power required to obtain resolution improvement by a factor of 4. This validates the concept of nanoparticle-assisted STED (NP-STED), where hybrid dye-plasmonic nanoparticles are used as labels for STED in order to decrease the depletion powers required for subwavelength imaging.

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