Harnessing light’s energy into nanoscale volumes requires novel engineering approaches to overcome a fundamental barrier known as the “diffraction limit.” However, researchers in the Cunningham Group have breached this barrier by developing nanoantennas that pack the energy captured from light sources, such as LEDs, into particles with nanometer-scale diameters, making it possible to detect individual biomolecules, catalyze chemical reactions, and generate photons with desirable properties for quantum computing.

See the full press release at:

https://ece.illinois.edu/newsroom/article/34397

 

For full details, see our publication in Nano Letters:

“Microcavity-Mediated Spectrally Tunable Amplification of Absorption in Plasmonic Nanoantennas,” Q. Huang and B.T. Cunningham, Nano Letters, in print 10.1021/acs.nanolett.9b01764.