NewswireToday - /newswire/ - Honolulu, HI, United States, 02/18/2006 - Properties of recently discovered photonic nanojets make them an ideal tool for detecting, differentiating and sorting nanoparticles, researchers at Northwestern University told Nanowerk..

A recent paper by researchers at Northwestern University in Illinois provides a physical explanation for the phenomenon wherein the backscattering of light by dielectric particles of sizes between 100 and 1 nm is enhanced by 7–11 orders of magnitude. The findings were published in an article titled "Superenhanced backscattering of light by nanoparticles" in the Jan. 15, 2006 edition of Optics Letters.
Vadim Backman and his group together with co-author Allen Taflove, previously discovered an optical phenomenon called photonic nanojet. These nanojets do not involve evanescent fields and do not require mechanical scanning.

"None of currently available techniques allow non-destructive, quantitative, and cost-effective characterization of individual nanoscale structures with nanometer precision"" Backman told Nanowerk. Instead, nanojets are a local field enhancement generated in the vicinity of a microsphere or microcylinder illuminated by a collimated light beam in the visible wavelength range.
A remarkable property of these photonic nanojets is that they can significantly enhance the backscattering of light by nanometer-scale particles as small as ∼1 nm located within the jets.

"This enhancement effect is an intricate physical process where several mechanisms are involved"" says Backman. Furthermore, the intensity and angular distribution of the backscattered signal is extremely sensitive to the size of the nanoparticle, which may enable differentiating particles with accuracy up to ∼1 nm.

These properties of photonic nanojets make them an ideal tool for detecting, differentiating and sorting nanoparticles, which is of immense necessity for the field of nanobiotechnology. Says Backman: "The photonic nanojet may have significant broad impact on nanotechnology and biotechnology. It maybe utilized for 1) analysis of individual nanometer scale intracellular components and macromolecular complexes and detection of individual viral particles; 2) detecting and characterizing individual nanostructures; 3) real-time sorting of nanostructures for the purposes of nanofabrication."

Agency / Source: Nanowerk, LLC

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