Strong Magneto-Optical Response of Nonmagnetic Organic Materials Coupled to Plasmonic Nanostructures

Plasmonic nanoparticles can significantly modify the optical properties of nearby organic molecules and thus present an attractive opportunity for sensing applications. However, the utilization of plasmonic nanoparticles in conventional absorption, fluorescence, or Raman spectroscopy techniques is often ineffective due to strong absorption background and light scattering, particularly in the case of turbid solutions, cell suspensions, and biological tissues. In this paper, authors show that nonmagnetic organic molecules may exhibit magneto-optical response due to binding to a plasmonic nanoparticle.

Specifically, authors detect strong magnetic circular dichroism signal from supramolecular J-aggregates, a representative organic dye, upon binding to silver-coated gold nanorods. This effect is explained by strong coupling between the J-aggregate exciton and the nanoparticle plasmon which results in the formation of a hybrid state in which the exciton effectively acquires magnetic properties from the plasmon.

Experimental findings are fully corroborated by theoretical modeling and constitute a novel magnetic method for chemo- and biosensing, which (upon adequate plasmonic nanoparticles functionalization) is intrinsically insensitive to the organic background and thus offers a significant advantage over conventional spectroscopy techniques.