Motion, Symmetry & Spectroscopy of Chiral Nanostructures

This book focuses on complex shaped micro- and nanostructures for future biomedical and sensing applications that were investigated by both theory and experiments. The first part of the book explores rotation-translation coupling of artificial microswimmers at low Reynolds numbers. Usually corkscrew shapes, i.e chiral shapes, are considered in such experiments, due to their inspiration from nature. However, the analysis of the relevant symmetries shows that achiral objects can also be propulsive, which is experimentally demonstrated for the first time. In the second part, a new single-particle spectroscopy technique was developed and the role of symmetry in such measurements is carefully examined. Spectra stemming from one individual nanoparticle that is moving freely in bulk solution, away from a surface, and only due to Brownian motion, are presented. On that basis, the rotationally averaged chiroptical spectrum of a single nanoparticle is measured -a novel observable that has not been accessible before.

Autorentext
Johannes Sachs is a physicist with a background in nanotechnology, optics and material science. His research focuses on Life Sciences and Photonics, in particular on the fabrication of nano- and microstructures with complex shapes and properties, as well as chirality and light-matter interactions at the nanoscale.
Dr. Sachs was a PhD student and is currently a Postdoc at the Micro-, Nano- and Molecular Systems Lab at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany. In 2020 he received his doctoral degree (Dr. rer. nat.) from the University of Stuttgart, Germany, for his fundamental work on microrobots and plasmonic nanostructures for their use in future biomedical applications and as a platform for novel optical sensor concepts. Before, he studied at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT, Germany), where he received a bachelor's (2012) and a master's degree (2014) in physics.

Inhalt
Introduction.- Fundamentals of Chiral Nanostructures in Fluids.- Motion of Chiral and Achiral Structures at Low Re.- Chiroptical Spectroscopy of Single Chiral and Achiral Nanoparticles.- Conclusions and Outlook.