Isolating strong nanoantenna–molecule interactions by ensemble-level single-molecule detection

Abstract

Traditionally, the nanoscale interaction between single photon emitters and plasmonic nanostructures is studied by relying on deterministic, near-perfect, nanoscale-control, either top-down or bottom-up. However, these approaches are ultra-low throughput thus rendering systematic studies difficult and time-consuming. Here, we show a highly parallelised far-field tactic, combining multiplexed super-resolution fluorescence localization microscopy and data-driven statistical analysis, to study near-field interactions between gold nanorods and single molecules, even at bulk concentrations. We demonstrate that ensemble-level single molecule detection allows separating individual emitters according to their coupling strength with tailored resonant structures, which ultimately permits the reconstruction of super-resolved 2D interaction maps around individual nanoantennas.