title: Whispering gallery microresonators for second harmonic light generation from a low number of small molecules.
abstract: Unmarked sensitive detection of molecules is needed in environmental pollution monitoring, disease diagnosis, security screening systems and in many other situations in which a substance must be identified. When molecules are attached or adsorbed onto an interface, detecting their presence is possible using second harmonic light generation, because at interfaces the inversion symmetry is broken. However, such light generation usually requires either dense matter or a large number of molecules combined with high-power laser sources. Here we show that using high-Q spherical microresonators and low average power, between 50 and 100 small non-fluorescent molecules deposited on the outer surface of the microresonator can generate a detectable change in the second harmonic light. This generation requires phase matching in the whispering gallery modes, which we achieved using a new procedure to periodically pattern, with nanometric precision, a molecular surface monolayer.
authors: ICFO-Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, Mediterranean Technology Park, 08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain.
authors: J L
authors: JL
authors: Dominguez-Juarez
authors: G
authors: G
authors: Kozyreff
authors: Jordi
authors: J
authors: Martorell
mesh_terms: D000327:Adsorption; D004867:Equipment Design; D005840:Gentian Violet / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry*; D008027:Light; D008863:Microspheres; D013057:Spectrum Analysis / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D005840:Gentian Violet