The
Molecular Plasmonics group together with the
Surface Photonics group at the Eindhoven University of Technology have two PhD positions in the field of metasurfaces for single-molecule biosensing. This collaborative project aims to develop a new generation of single-molecule sensors that exploit collective and localized resonances in metasurfaces to boost the temporal resolution of single-molecule fluorescence sensors.
IntroductionCurrent workhorse techniques to detect and study single biomolecules rely on fluorescence microscopy. Due to the limited brightness of fluorescent dyes, these platforms only give access to biomolecular processes (e.g. interaction kinetics) on long timescales, from milliseconds to minutes. Recent advances in Zijlstra’s group used metallic nanoparticles to enhance the fluorescence intensity. This approach has given access for the first time into previously inaccessible microsecond dynamics (
link). However, real applications are still far away because the associated heating of the laser-excited nanoparticles affects the biomolecule and its dynamics.
About this positionIn this position you will leverage novel dielectric and plasmonic metasurface designs for single-molecule fluorescence sensing. The metasurfaces will be designed and fabricated by another PhD student on the project. You will experimentally quantify the fluorescence enhancement mechanisms using single-molecule spectroscopy and super-resolution microscopy. Subsequently, you will exploit the fluorescence enhancing metasurface for fast single-molecule fluorescence sensing of protein interactions.
The project will be supervised by Prof. Zijlstra (Molecular Plasmonics group) and co-supervised by Prof. Gomez Rivas (Surface Photonics group). You will closely collaborate with the other PhD student employed on the project, who will design and fabricate the metasurfaces.
About the groupsBoth groups are part of the department of Applied Physics and Science Education. The surface photonics group investigates light-matter interaction in a broad range of frequencies, from the visible to the THz. This interaction is enhanced by resonant structures, such as metallic or dielectric nanoparticles and metasurfaces. The group is part of the research cluster "Photonics and Semiconductor Nanophysics".
The molecular plasmonics group develops plasmonic and nanophotonic biosensors with single-molecule sensitivity. The nanoscale field confinement in resonant (e.g. plasmonic) nanoparticles is exploited to detect and study single molecules in real-time. The team is multidisciplinary and hosts physicists, chemists, and biomedical engineers that collaborate in a close-knit team. The lab hosts a range of state-of-the-art single-molecule microscopes in optical laboratories, as well as wet-chemical labs for sample preparation. The group is part of a bigger research cluster focusing on optical sensing.