Laser & Optoelectronics Progress, Volume. 61, Issue 13, 1324002(2024)
Picocavity Plasmon-Enhanced Vibrational Spectroscopy of Single-Molecule Chemical Processes of 4,4'-Dimercaptoazobenzene
Raman scattering measurement technology based on plasmon enhancement mechanism can improve the Raman scattering cross-sections of molecules by several orders of magnitude. Accordingly, they have a wide range of application prospects for trace substance identification and tracking. Many previous studies have reported identification of single-molecules when the enhancement factor reaches ~1010. Measuring physical and chemical behaviors at the single-molecule level is expected to provide richer and more accurate results compared to measuring the statistical behavior of an ensemble of many molecules. This study uses a radially polarized laser to excite a picocavity hotspot in a longitudinally polarized plasmonic antenna. We achieve an accurate observation of the chemical processes of individual molecules using their vibrational spectra. In particular, we observe that 4-nitrobenzenethiol dimerized into 4,4'-dimercaptoazobenzene and that a single-molecule of the latter briefly switched from trans- to cis-conformation; it then desorbs from the gold atom and reverts to trans-conformation. This study preliminarily shows the power of picocavity plasmon-enhanced vibrational spectroscopy in investigating single-molecule chemical kinetics.
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Biwen Chen, Jing Long, Wenhua Han, Yichen Miao, Hui Yi, Wenwu Xu, Yi Gao, Tian Yang. Picocavity Plasmon-Enhanced Vibrational Spectroscopy of Single-Molecule Chemical Processes of 4,4'-Dimercaptoazobenzene[J]. Laser & Optoelectronics Progress, 2024, 61(13): 1324002
Category: Optics at Surfaces
Received: Nov. 10, 2023
Accepted: Dec. 1, 2023
Published Online: Jul. 17, 2024
The Author Email: Jing Long (longjing_sh@163.com), Tian Yang (tianyang@sjtu.edu.cn)
CSTR:32186.14.LOP232468