Experimental Proof of Concept of Nanoparticle-Assisted STED

• Published in: Nano letters Vol. 14; no. 8; pp. 4449 - 4453
• Main Authors: Sonnefraud, Yannick, Sinclair, Hugo G, Sivan, Yonatan, Foreman, Matthew R, Dunsby, Christopher W, Neil, Mark A. A, French, Paul M, Maier, Stefan A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Chemical Society 13.08.2014
• Subjects: Collective excitations (including excitons, polarons, plasmons and other charge-density excitations); Condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties; Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; Electronic structure and electrical properties of surfaces, interfaces, thin films and low-dimensional structures; Exact sciences and technology; Fluorescent Dyes - chemistry; Gold - chemistry; Materials science; Microscopy, Fluorescence; Nanocrystalline materials; Nanoscale materials and structures: fabrication and characterization; Nanoshells - chemistry; Physics; Surface and interface electron states; microscopy; Plasmonics; STED microscopy; fluorescence; nanoshells; Nanoparticles; Gold; Lifetime; Stimulated emission; Core shell structure; Imaging; Doping; Fluorescence; Plasmons; Surface plasmon resonance; Nanostructured materials; Silica
• ISSN: 1530-6984; 1530-6992
• DOI: 10.1021/nl5014103

We imaged core–shell nanoparticles, consisting of a dye-doped silica core covered with a layer of gold, with a stimulated emission depletion, fluorescence lifetime imaging (STED-FLIM) microscope. Because of the field enhancement provided by the localized surface plasmon resonance of the gold shell, we demonstrate a reduction of the STED depletion power required to obtain resolution improvement by a factor of 4. This validates the concept of nanoparticle-assisted STED (NP-STED), where hybrid dye-plasmonic nanoparticles are used as labels for STED in order to decrease the depletion powers required for subwavelength imaging.