Nanoscale Plasmonic V-Groove Waveguides for the Interrogation of Single Fluorescent Bacterial Cells

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate the interrogation of an individual Escherichia coli cell using a nanoscale plasmonic V-groove waveguide. Several different configurations were studied. The first involved the excitation of the cell in a liquid environment because it flows on top of the waveguide nanocoupler, while the obtained fluorescence is coupled into the waveguide and collected at the other nanocoupler. The other two configurations involved the positioning of the bacterium within the nanoscale waveguide and its excitation in a dry environment either directly from the top or through waveguide modes. This is achieved by taking advantage of the waveguide properties not only for light guiding but also as a mechanical tool for trapping the bacteria within the V-grooves. The obtained results are supported by a set of numerical simulations, shedding more light on the mechanism of excitation. This demonstration paves the way for the construction of an efficient bioplasmonic chip for diverse cell-based sensing applications.

Spin–Orbit Controlled Excitation of Quantum Emitters in Hybrid Plasmonic Nanocircuits

“…Yinhui Kan [12][13][14] ), focused ion-beam milling (for V-shaped channels [15,16] ) and other sophisticated fabrication/assembly techniques. [17][18][19] Dielectric loaded surface plasmon polariton waveguides (DLSPPWs) can be considered as a promising integration platform to overcome this issue, because the topdown lithography-based fabrication techniques make it easier to embed preselected QEs inside the dielectric waveguides.…”

“…[ 1–8 ] Different kinds of plasmonic waveguides, including metal wedges, V‐grooves, single and parallel nanowires, have been considered for QE coupling to strongly confined plasmon modes in the form of propagating surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). [ 9–18 ] Even though these waveguides are able of supporting extremely strongly confined SPP modes, their suitability for deterministic, accurate and practical integration with QEs is rather challenging, if possible at all, due to their complicated fabrication involving chemical synthesis (for metallic nanowires [ 12–14 ] ), focused ion‐beam milling (for V‐shaped channels [ 15,16 ] ) and other sophisticated fabrication/assembly techniques. [ 17–19 ] Dielectric loaded surface plasmon polariton waveguides (DLSPPWs) can be considered as a promising integration platform to overcome this issue, because the top–down lithography‐based fabrication techniques make it easier to embed preselected QEs inside the dielectric waveguides.…”

A Review on Micro/Nanoforming to Fabricate 3D Metallic Structures

“…3D metallic nanostructures have been attracted great attention owing to their notable optical properties, unique electronic properties, and good structural stabilities, which have been widely used in a variety of fields of plasmonics, [ 163,164 ] electronics, [ 1 ] optics, [ 165,166 ] biosciences, [ 5,7 ] catalysis, [ 167–168 ] and novel energy. [ 169–173 ] For example, some bioinspired nanostructures, such as based on the cicada wing, have approximately hexagonal distributions within micrometer‐scale domains, which are suited to be used as efficient surface‐enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates.…”

“…[ 1–6 ] The mass micromanufacturing technologies with high dimensional accuracy for a wide variety of materials are of crucial importance to the advancement of micro/nanoscale science and technology. [ 7–9 ] The silicon‐based micromanufacturing methods in the microelectronics industry, including optical lithography, electron‐beam lithography (EBL), focused ion beam (FIB) lithography, other etching processes, etc., are well suited to creating 2D and 3D microstructures on the surfaces of semiconductor materials. [ 10–12 ] However, these conventional silicon‐based micromanufacturing methods require high facility costs under the limit of materials, and have disadvantages of long processing cycle, low production rate, and high cost.…”

Nanophotonics for bacterial detection and antimicrobial susceptibility testing

“…The trapping of bacteria in the near-field was then demonstrated by Lotan et al [59] who fabricated nanoscale plasmonic V-groove waveguides as shown in Figure 1(a). The modes of these waveguides exert strong optical forces on objects in their proximity, which was verified by collecting the fluorescence signal from labelled bacteria (see Figure 1(b) and (c)).…”