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CP: Chemische Physik
CP 21: Einzelteilchenspektroskopie
CP 21.4: Talk
Thursday, March 25, 1999, 10:45–11:00, Gg
Terrylene in p-terphenyl: A model system for single molecule microscopy and spectroscopy at room temperature. — •Bert Hecht, Ludovic Fleury, Beate Sick, Gert Zumofen, and Urs P. Wild — Physical Chemistry Laboratory, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH-Zentrum, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland
Single molecules of terrylene in a crystalline host (p-terphenyl)
show a very small average photobleaching quantum efficiency of
less than 1.2 · 10−8 at room temperature [1]. This
property allows to study the physics of a single quantum
system at room temperature without the need of averaging over
many single systems or long integration times to get enough
signal-to-noise ratio. Such averaging often leads to a loss of
information. Fluorescence spectra and fluorescence photon
emission statistics of single terrylene molecules have been
studied using a scanning confocal optical microscope. We observe
characteristic fluorescence spectra of single terrylene
molecules as well as antibunching and bunching in the stream of
fluorescence photons.
[1] High photo-stability of single molecules in an organic
crystal at room temperature observed by scanning confocal
optical microscopy, L. Fleury, B. Sick, G. Zumofen,
B. Hecht and U.P. Wild, to appear in Molecular Physics