Plasmonic nano-optical tweezers offers unprecedented abilities to manipulate nano-objects. However, measuring the trap stiffness at nanoscale dimensions remains a technical challenge, and as a consequence, very few reports have explored plasmonic designs to optimize their trapping performance. In a recent publication released in Nanoscale, we detai

Our team-member Aleksandr Barulin recently got awarded the thesis prize of the Doctoral School "Physics and Sciences of the Matter" for his PhD work. Congratulations Aleksandr for this well-deserved prize!

Back into direct physical format, Jerome will participate to the next "Nuit Européenne des Chercheurs" at Aix en Provence on Sept. 24th. More details and program here.

An international study entitled "updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators" recently measured the impact of scientific citations. 160,000 scientists -corresponding to the world's top 2% in their respective fields- have seen their output analyzed from 1960 to 2019 and classified into different scientific fields. In th

Plasmonics can be used to enhance the emission properties of single quantum nano-objects and use them as bright ultrafast single photon sources. However, plasmonic trapping single quantum objects has remained highly challenging so far. In a recent Nano Letters publication, we introduce a dedicated plasmonic nanoantenna design to trap single colloid

We are opening a position for postdoctoral fellowship: experimental nanophotonics and plasmonic nano-optical tweezers. Read the details and apply through the CNRS institutional website: https://bit.ly/3HiobDC

What happens when you shine a UV laser onto a single aluminum nanohole filled with water? See the video below of the experiment, accelerated 5x. Holes get brighter once exposed to the laser: this is laser-induced corrosion of the aluminum film by water molecules. It is not direct laser damage (we use a power of 60 µW, 3x below the direct photodama

Ultraviolet plasmonics has attracted recently a growing attention owing to the possibility to take advantage of increased light-matter interaction in the UV range. However, the core question of demonstrating the capacity of UV plasmonic structures to enhance the radiative emission rate of proteins has remained unproven yet. In a recent article publ

Plasmonic nano-optical trapping has revolutionized the use of optical tweezers, and a lot of attention has been devoted to the optical gradient force. However, the metal absorbs part of the incident light, leading to a temperature gradient responsible for an additional thermophoretic force which remains largely overlooked in plasmonic trapping. In

The Green function plays a central role in wave propagation, as it describes the response of a system to an arbitrary impulse. However, measuring it experimentally is very challenging since it needs to be measured in both amplitude and phase with deep subwavelength spatial resolution. These highly demanding requirements have significantly limited t