Condensed Matter Seminar

Eric Potma
Department of Chemistry, University of California, Irvine

Tuesday, March 24, 2009; 4:00 pm in JFB 334

Nonlinear coherent microscopy of tissues, nanostructures and single molecules

The development of nonlinear coherent optical microscopy techniques, such as second harmonic generation (SHG) and coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) imaging, has opened up new ways of probing biological and synthetic materials. Not only can these nonlinear optical techniques be used for three-dimensional chemical mapping of intact skin and complete aortas, but these imaging tools are also the methods of choice to interrogate the nonlinear optical properties of nanostructures. In this presentation, coherent anti-Stokes scattering microscopy is used to examine the nonlinear plasmonics of gold nanowires. It is also shown that this form of microscopy is capable of visualizing individual single-walled carbon nanotubes based on the third-order optical nonlinearity of the molecules.