Optimizing the optical detection of individual carbon nanotubes for bio-applications
Résumé
The optical microscopy of single molecules has recently been beneficial for many applications, in particular in biology. It allows a sub-wavelength localization of an isolated nano-object and a subtle probing of its spatio temporal nano-environment including in living cells.
For many bio-applications, near infrared nanoprobes and/or non spherical nanoprobes could be advantageous. In this context, the use of single walled carbon nanotube tubes is expected to be favorable. A prerequisite is however to tune their physical properties/morphologies and optimize their optical detection in biological environments depending on the foreseen applications. Our current efforts toward these goals will be presented.