Berlin 2008 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Downloads | Help

CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 15: Single Molecules

CPP 15.1: Talk

Tuesday, February 26, 2008, 17:00–17:15, C 230

Single molecule probes in soft materials — •Jörg Schuster and Christian von Borczyskowski — TU Chemnitz, Institut für Physik, 09107 Chemnitz

Within the past years, single molecule spectroscopy has become a routine tool which is extensively used to study soft, mostly biological, materials. The success of single molecule spectroscopy is due to the fact, that single molecule probes are sensitive to the structure and dynamics of their local nanoscale environment. Fluctuations of single molecule observables such as dipole orientation, spectral positions, excited state lifetime which would be averaged out in ensemble experiments are exploited in order to detect static and dynamic heterogeneities in combination with a nano scale resolution.

The present talk will be focussed on the application of single molecule probes in the field of nonbiological, soft materials, including simple and complex liquids as well as polymers. A number of very different single molecule based techniques is used, including single molecule tracking in a wide field microscope as well as spectroscopy in a confocal instrument. The application of special dye probes will be demonstrated by some recent experiments from our group. In addition, we report on a very recent finding, namely to use the so called power law intermittency (blinking), as a probe of local dielectric relaxations and charge trapping in nonconducting polymer materials.