Critical-angle refractometer enhanced by periodic multilayer coating

Konopsky, Valery N.; Alieva, E. V.

doi:10.1016/j.snb.2010.07.034

Cited by 6 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Measuring local refractive-index values, , is extremely important due to the fast development of quantum- and nanotechnologies, as well as materials and life sciences. If the sample or its characteristic structures have sizes below the wavelength of light, the usual, and some advanced (e.g., refs and ), refractometry techniques are not applicable. Certain progress has recently been reported in ref , where computer simulations demonstrated that n fluctuations on subdiffraction length scales can be extracted from the analysis of scattered light.…”

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Micro-Refractometry and Local-Field Mapping with Single Molecules

et al. 2018

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The refractive index n is one of the most important materials parameters of solids and, in recent years, has become the subject of significant interdisciplinary interest, especially in nanostructures and meta-materials. It is, in principle, a macroscopic quantity, so its meaning on a length scale of a few nanometers, i.e., well below the wavelength of light, is not clear a priori and is related to methods of its measurement on this length scale. Here we introduce a novel experimental approach for mapping the effective local value [Formula: see text] of the refractive index in solid films and the analysis of related local-field enhancement effects. The approach is based on the imaging and spectroscopy of single chromophore molecules at cryogenic temperatures. Since the fluorescence lifetime T of dye molecules in a transparent matrix depends on the refractive index due to the local density of the electromagnetic field (i.e., of the photon states), one can obtain the local [Formula: see text] values in the surroundings of individual chromophores simply by measuring their T times. Spatial mapping of the local [Formula: see text] values is accomplished by localizing the corresponding chromophores with nanometer accuracy. We demonstrate this approach for a polycrystalline n-hexadecane film doped with terrylene. Unexpectedly large fluctuations of local-field effects and effective [Formula: see text] values (the latter between 1.1 and 1.9) were found.

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