Plasmon-Enhanced Photoreactivity

Plasmon Enhanced Microbiology Inactivation

Laser irradiation techniques have attracted interest as a photonic approach for the selective inactivation of microbiological samples. We combine laser irradiation techniques with localized surface plasmons on Silver Nanostructures to significantly enhance the microbiology inactivation.  The overlap of the plasmon resonance and the laser irradiation wavelength is a crucial component of this method, as nonresonant nanostructures do not lead to an inactivation of the viruses. In previous research, we discover that the Silver Nanoparticle can inactivate the bacteria through the Silver Ions releasing control by the Ruthenium resonance structure. We are currently exploring a variety of methods to further enhance the selectivity and effectiveness of this method over virus samples. 

Furthermore, we are also discovering more complex nanostructures as well as biotoxic-free activation dye that can contribute to more possibilities for controlling the inactivating process and reducing the biotoxic effect from the chemical and the long-term biocapacity.

Plasmonic Excitation Transfer in Nanostructures

We are trying to understand the plasmonic excitation transfer in complex nanostructure for silver and quantum dots. Though we had understood the quasistatic plasmon resonance in semiconductor nanocrystals, and to achieve efficient light energy harvesting and energy conversion, we are investigating a new method of measuring the energy transfer in the nanostructure by measuring the energy transfer between different kinds of nanostructure that has a resonance overlapping.