Regensburg 2025 – scientific programme
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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik
O 60: Plasmonics and Nanooptics: Fabrication, Characterization and Applications I
O 60.9: Talk
Wednesday, March 19, 2025, 12:30–12:45, H8
Optical Sieve for Nanoplastic Detection — •Dominik Ludescher1, Lukas Wesemann2, Julian Schwab1, Julian Karst1, Shaban B. Sulejman2, Monika Ubl1, Ann Roberts2, Harald Giessen1, and Mario Hentschel1 — 14th Physics Institute and Research Center SCoPE, University of Stuttgart, Germany — 2ARC Center of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems (TMOS), The University of Melbourne, Australia
Micro- and nanoplastics contaminate marine ecosystems and endanger aquatic life, even in remote locations. These minute synthetic fragments, persisting for hundreds of years, infiltrate the food chain, posing potential health risks due to toxic chemicals. Besides improving the quality of plastic disposal and reducing plastic production, determining the existence of micro- and nanoplastics in aqueous environments like water or blood is essential for biological studies. We present an optical sieve for nanoplastic detection based on the recently discovered Mie void resonances. Our devices are able to detect, size, and count nanoplastic particles by observing apparent color changes of the emitted light in the presence of a sphere in the void. The proposed method profits from its simplicity and only requires a conventional microscope setup with CMOS RGB imaging sensor.
Keywords: Nanoplastic detection; Mie void resonances; Synthesized real-world samples; Nanoplastic sizing; Nanoplastic counting