Strong Extinction of a Laser Beam by a Single Molecule

2006/04/24 by Ilja Gerhardt, I. Gerhardt, G. Wrigge +6 · 3 citations
Computer Science · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Near-Field Optical Microscopy #Orbital Angular Momentum in Optics #Quantum Information and Cryptography #quant-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.98.033601

published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 033601 (2007) · 5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to PRL

arxiv created 2006/04/24 · openalex publication_date 2007/01/17 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We present an experiment where a single molecule strongly affects the amplitude and phase of a laser field emerging from a subwavelength aperture. We achieve a visibility of -6% in direct and +10% in cross-polarized detection schemes. Our analysis shows that a close to full extinction should be possible using near-field excitation.

Citations

• Classical Electrodynamics

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