ABSTRACT
Controlling light at the nanoscale is of fundamental importance and is essential for applications ranging from optical sensing and metrology to information processing, communications, and quantum optics. Considerable efforts are currently directed towards optical nanoantennas that directionally convert light into strongly localized energy and vice versa. Here we present highly directional 3D nanoantenna operating with visible light. We demonstrate a simple bottom-up approach to produce macroscopic arrays of such nanoantennas and present a way to address their functionality via interaction with quantum dots (QDs), properly embedded in the structure of the nanoantenna. The ease and accessibility of this structurally robust optical antenna device prompts its use as an affordable test bed for concepts in nano-optics and nanophotonics applications.
ABSTRACT
Small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) has been employed for the analysis of conformations of poly(L-lysine)-graft-poly(ethylene glycol) (PLL-g-PEG) molecular bottle brushes in aqueous solutions. The degree of polymerisation of the PEG chains was systematically varied in order to unravel dependence of the conformational properties of the bottle brushes on the molecular weight of the grafted chains. The grafting density was kept constant and high enough to ensure strong overlap of the PEG chains. The scattering spectra were fitted on the basis of the model of an effective worm-like chain with the account of average radial distribution and local fluctuations of the PEG density in the bottle brush. The results of the fits indicate that molecular brushes retain weakly bent configuration on the length scale of the order of (or larger than) the brush thickness. This finding is in agreement with earlier simulation and recent theoretical results.
