Digital Processing with a Hybrid Plasmonic Logic Nanogate

Abstract

We developed a simple strategy to gate a plasmonic event with a hybrid photoresponsive compound capable of mimicking AND-type logic behaviour. Binary digits are encoded into ultraviolet and visible illumination (which are used as inputs) and the fluorescence of the molecule (the arithmetic output). The plasmonic process chosen is the visible lightcontrolled, gold-nanoparticle (AuNP) catalysed reduction of resazurin to resorufin, while the second optical input is the UVA-induced cleavage of a 2- nitrobenzyl quencher. The synergistic combination of plasmonic nanostructures and organic molecules allows for the manipulation of a programmable Boolean logic operation at the molecular level.