Our group focuses on various optical spectroscopies of semiconductor and metallic nanoparticles, and analytes that are in the close proximity of the nanoparticles. The aim of our research is i) to characterize the optical and structural properties of nanoparticles at the single particle level; ii) to understand the interaction between various materials, eg. exciton-plasmon interaction between colloidal quantum dots and noble metal nanoparticles; iii) to functionalize the nanoparticles and to control and optimize their properties for biological sensing and imaging, and energy related applications. Specifically, the tools we use include single particle/molecule spectroscopy, time-resolved fluorescence, Raman scattering, plasmonics, nanofabrication, electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, etc.
