I am a CNRS researcher at the Fresnel Institute (Marseille, France). This blog describes my research in nanophotonics and its latest evolution. Hope you'll find some relevant information !
Our latest paper has been published in the July issue of the Journal of the Optical Society of America B. Free reprints for
personal use only are available on our group website here.
In this manuscript, we investigate the interaction between a dipolar emitter and a dielectric microsphere under focused laser
illumination. We present a detailed experimental analysis of the fluorescence emission characteristics, and relate our observations to numerical simulations.
Our findings demonstrate that the microsphere acts as a microlens placed in the emitter's near-field, allowing a more efficient
focusing of the incident beam as well as increasing the collection of the fluorescence light up to 60% of the total emission. That last figure is more than all the emission normally emitted in
the half-space towards the detectors.
This simple scheme outperforms the classical diffraction-limited detection of fluorescent particles, and opens new opportunities
for low-cost and highly parallel single-molecule investigations.
In a rush of setting up a new house together with a new experiment, I somehow passed aside writing a few words here about Mark
Leger, a.k.a Krabi Autrement.
Mark is a French-Thai free-lance guide for people wishing to discover the Krabi province of Thailand in an unconventional manner. I
met him for ten days last February, and the least I can say is that I warmly recommend him.
"Si vous en arrivez à lire ce texte, et qu'au fond de vous vous sentez une affinité pour la démarche entamée par Mark, alors n'hésitez plus, Krabi-autrement est fait pour
vous. Mark est très disponible et à l'écoute de vos attentes. Il sait aussi bien se faire très discret, et respecter votre rythme. Ces qualités, associées à un grand professionnalisme et une
profonde gentillesse, font sans doute de lui le meilleur guide francophone de cette région magnifique.
Votre seul prérequis sera de vouloir être vous-même un acteur central de votre voyage. Mark vous fera découvrir énormément de choses et s'occupera volontiers de la logistique. Vous pourrez donc
vous concentrer sur l'essentiel : la curiosité de vous ouvrir à cette partie du monde. Et elle le vous rendra bien. On dit de Krabi qu'elle est la plus belle province de Thaïlande. Ce qui est
certain, c'est qu'elle est fascinante."
Published in the International Journal of Materials and Product Technology, in a special issue on nanostructured materials for
photonics applications :
Biophotonics applications of nanometric apertures
Jerome Wenger, Davy Gerard, Pierre-Francois Lenne, Herve Rigneault, Nicolas Bonod, Evgeny Popov, Didier Marguet, Constantin Nelep, Thomas W. Ebbesen
DOI: 10.1504/IJMPT.2009.025002
Actually, this paper was written in March 2007, revised version accepted for publication in September 2007, and finally published
in April 2009 !! Never got a decent explanation with such a delay. So this explains why the reference list therein is mostly already obsolete now, with no citations to papers of late 2007 and
2008.
For personal use only, free reprints are available here.
The CNRS Institute of Information and Engineering Sciences and Technologies (INST2I) has highlighted our recent work on photonic
nanojets and their use for single molecule detection.
