title: Influencing the angular emission of a single molecule.
abstract: We present the first experimental proof for the influence of a nearby nanosized metal object on the angular photon emission by a single molecule. Using a novel angular sensitive detection scheme, we directly quantify the redirection of angular emission for different molecular dipole orientations as an object is scanned laterally over the molecule at different heights. An excellent agreement between experiments and 2D-numerical simulations is found for molecules oriented perpendicular to the sample, whereas, for parallel orientations, the observed behavior contradicts the calculated behavior.
authors.affiliation: Applied Optics Group, Department of Applied Physics & MESA Research Institute, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands. h.gersen@tn.utwente.nl
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gersen
authors.forename: M F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: García-Parajó
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Novotny
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Veerman
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kuipers
authors.lastname: van Hulst NF