Plasmonic atoms and molecules for imaging and sensing

Nanoscale structures play a fundamental role in diverse scientific areas, including biology and information technology. It is necessary to develop methods that can observe nanoscale structures and dynamic processes that involve them. Colloidal plasmonic nanoparticles (plasmonic “atoms”) and their clusters (plasmonic “molecules”) are nanoscale objects with remarkable optical properties that provide new opportunities for sensing and imaging on the relevant length and time scales. Many biology questions require optically monitoring of the dynamic behavior of biological systems on single molecule level. In contrast to the commonly used fluorescent probes which have the problem of bleaching, blinking and relatively weak signals, plasmonic probes display superb brightness, persistency and photostability, thus enable long observation time and high temporal and spacial resolutions. When plasmonic atoms are clustered together, their resonances redshift while the intensities increase as a result of plasmon coupling. These optical responses are dependent on the interparticle gaps and the overall geometry, which makes plasmonic molecules capable of detecting biomolecule clustering and measuring nanometer scale distance fluctuations. In this dissertation, individual plasmonic atoms are firstly evaluated as imaging probe and their interactions with lipid membrane are tested on a newly developed on-chip black lipid membrane system. Subsequently, plasmonic dimers (plasmon rulers) prepared through DNA-programmed self-assembly are monitored to detect the mechanical properties of single biopolymers. Measurement of the spring constant of short (tens of nucleotides or base pairs) DNAs is demonstrated through plasmon coupling microscopy. Colloidal plasmonic atoms of various materials, sizes and shapes scatter vivid colors in the full-visible range. Assembling them into plasmonic molecules provides additional degrees of freedom for color manipulation. More importantly, the electric field in the gaps of plasmonic molecules can be enhanced by several orders of magnitude, which is highly desirable in single molecule sensing applications. In this dissertation, the fundamentals of plasmonic coupling are investigated through one-dimensional gold nanosphere chains. Using the directed self-assembly approach, multichromatic color-switchable plasmonic nanopixels composed of plasmonic atoms and molecules of various materials, sizes, shapes and geometries are integrated in one image with nanometer precision, which facilitates the encoding of complex spectral features with high relevance in security tagging and high density optical data storage.2017-01-01T00:00:00

Image and Video Forensics

Nowadays, images and videos have become the main modalities of information being exchanged in everyday life, and their pervasiveness has led the image forensics community to question their reliability, integrity, confidentiality, and security. Multimedia contents are generated in many different ways through the use of consumer electronics and high-quality digital imaging devices, such as smartphones, digital cameras, tablets, and wearable and IoT devices. The ever-increasing convenience of image acquisition has facilitated instant distribution and sharing of digital images on digital social platforms, determining a great amount of exchange data. Moreover, the pervasiveness of powerful image editing tools has allowed the manipulation of digital images for malicious or criminal ends, up to the creation of synthesized images and videos with the use of deep learning techniques. In response to these threats, the multimedia forensics community has produced major research efforts regarding the identification of the source and the detection of manipulation. In all cases (e.g., forensic investigations, fake news debunking, information warfare, and cyberattacks) where images and videos serve as critical evidence, forensic technologies that help to determine the origin, authenticity, and integrity of multimedia content can become essential tools. This book aims to collect a diverse and complementary set of articles that demonstrate new developments and applications in image and video forensics to tackle new and serious challenges to ensure media authenticity