Plasmonic nanopores for single molecule sensing

Abstract

Grabbing a single molecule and inspecting its contents is far from easy. Apart from the small size of the objects, biomolecules shake, shimmer, and bounce around a tremendous amount. How can one gently control something that small (without squashing or destroying it) and still be able to tell what it is? The work in this thesis is exactly aimed to develop a practical solution to that problem: creating a plasmonic nanopore sensor to investigate and manipulate single biomolecules. The plasmonic nanopore is constructed from two single-molecule sensing devices merged into one: a solid-state nanopore, a tiny hole in a thin membrane that confines a static electric field, and a plasmonic nanoantenna, a gold nanostructure that concentrates light into nanoscale volumes (hotspots). Using these localized static and optical fields, biomolecules can be captured, trapped, perturbed, manipulated, and probed in a variety of ways. All controlled at will by the experimenter, one single molecule at the time.