Jesica Pellegrotti - 11:30 hs

Systematic reduction of photobleaching of single molecules in DNA origami – gold nanoparticle hybrids

We present a detailed single molecule study of photobleaching of fluorophores in the nanometric vicinity of gold nanoparticles of various sizes. In order to place the individual fluorophores at controlled nanometric separation distances from the gold nanoparticles, we use a DNA self-assembly structure21. We observe a strong nanoparticle size dependent reduction of photobleaching. Because of the well-defined geometry of the DNA-gold nanoparticle-fluorophore constructs we are able to precisely compare our results to 3D numerical simulations, confirming that the reduction is produced by a controlled increase of the radiative decay rate.