Journal
JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY LETTERS
Volume 3, Issue 10, Pages 1393-1399Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/jz300342p
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Funding
- Robert A. Welch Foundation [C-1664]
- Office of Naval Research [N00014-10-1-0989]
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Individual molecules and nanoparticles can be imaged based on their absorption using photothermal microscopy. This technique relies on the heating-induced changes in the refractive index of the surrounding medium. Here, we demonstrate an order of magnitude larger enhancement of the signal-to-noise ratio in photothermal imaging of 20 nm gold nanoparticles when using a thermotropic liquid crystal (5CB). We show quantitatively that this increase is due to the large change in the thermo-optical properties of 5CB mainly along the nematic director. Enhancing the sensitivity is important for the further development of absorption-based single-molecule spectroscopy techniques.
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