title: Counting Single Rhodamine 6G Dye Molecules in Organosilicate Nanoparticles.
abstract: Rhodamine 6G (R6G) dye molecules have been embedded into organosilicate nanoparticles to improve thermal and chemical stability of these marker molecules. We demonstrate that the well-established method of optical single-particle microscopy can be used to determine the number of dye molecules per nanoparticle in such hybrid materials. Analysing the fluorescence intensity of R6G in single nanoparticles, we obtain an average number of 1.3 - 1.7 dye molecules per nanoparticle as compared to 1 R6G per particle obtained from ensemble experiments. The blinking behaviour of embedded R6G can be described by a power law with an exponent α(on/off) = - 1.7. Ensemble measurements complete the optical characterization of the nanoparticles, which reveals no pronounced R6G aggregate formation.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics, Chemnitz University of Technology, Reichenhainer Str. 70, D-09126 Chemnitz, Germany.
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Trenkmann
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bok
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Korampally
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gangopadhyay
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Graaf
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: von Borczyskowski