The group has a long experience on self-assembled DNA structures, like DNA origami, and their modifications and utilization in nanofabrication of electrical and optical/plasmonic nanodevices. For example, we have developed a highly parallel DNA origami based fabrication method, DNA assisted lithography, (DALI) for arbitrary shaped metallic nanostructures for plasmonic structures and metamaterials, as well as fabricated a DNA-assembled single electron transistor operating at room temperature. At the moment we are aiming for optical metamaterials covering large surfaces via improved fabrication by enhanced DALI-method.
Another main interest of the group is a strong coupling between confined light, like surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) and cavity photons (CP), and molecules. When photoactive molecules interact strongly with confined light modes, new hybrid light–matter states, polaritons, are formed. The formation of the polariton modes alters the potential energy surfaces of the molecules with respect to the bare molecules, providing thus a promising paradigm for controlling photochemical reactions. This new field is calledpolaritonic chemistry. In collaboration with group of Gerrit Groenhof (Department of Chemistry) we are developing a theory taking into account all the molecular degrees of freedom, which are many times neglected in theories, and carrying out experiments demonstrating its efficiency.
Polaritons also enable extremely fast and efficient energy transfer, which can be applied to the collection of solar energy, for example. All new inventions like this will help us in the green transition. We just received project funding to develop this idea more:
Other topics studied include plasmon-enhanced-fluorescence based in-vivo detection virus activity, as well as plasmonic/optical properties of graphene and conducting polymers.
