title: Plasmonic Nanoprobes for Stimulated Emission Depletion Nanoscopy.
abstract: Plasmonic nanoparticles influence the absorption and emission processes of nearby emitters due to local enhancements of the illuminating radiation and the photonic density of states. Here, we use the plasmon resonance of metal nanoparticles in order to enhance the stimulated depletion of excited molecules for super-resolved nanoscopy. We demonstrate stimulated emission depletion (STED) nanoscopy with gold nanorods with a long axis of only 26 nm and a width of 8 nm. These particles provide an enhancement of up to 50% of the resolution compared to fluorescent-only probes without plasmonic components irradiated with the same depletion power. The nanoparticle-assisted STED probes reported here represent a ∼2 × 103reduction in probe volume compared to previously used nanoparticles. Finally, we demonstrate their application toward plasmon-assisted STED cellular imaging at low-depletion powers, and we also discuss their current limitations.
authors: Emiliano
authors: E
authors: Cortés
authors: Paloma A
authors: PA
authors: Huidobro
authors: Hugo G
authors: HG
authors: Sinclair
authors: Stina
authors: S
authors: Guldbrand
authors: Department of Chemistry, University College London , 20 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0AJ, United Kingdom.
authors: William J
authors: WJ
authors: Peveler
authors: Timothy
authors: T
authors: Davies
authors: Simona
authors: S
authors: Parrinello
authors: Frederik
authors: F
authors: Görlitz
authors: Chris
authors: C
authors: Dunsby
authors: Mark A A
authors: MA
authors: Neil
authors: Unit of Electro-optics Engineering, Ben-Gurion University , Beer-Sheba 8410501, Israel.
authors: Yonatan
authors: Y
authors: Sivan
authors: Department of Chemistry, University College London , 20 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0AJ, United Kingdom.
authors: Ivan P
authors: IP
authors: Parkin
authors: Paul M W
authors: PM
authors: French
authors: Stefan A
authors: SA
authors: Maier
keywords: STED nanoscopy; bioimaging; nanorods; plasmonic nanoparticles; super resolution