Electron-Phonon Scattering in 2D Silver Nanotriangles

Electron-phonon energy exchanges are investigated in 2D silver nanotriangles of thickness ranging from 5 to 8 nm and lateral size ranging from 25 to 85 nm, using time-resolved femtosecond spectroscopy in the low-perturbation regime. The measured electron-phonon decay time is smaller in 2D nanotriangles than in bulk silver, and its value corresponds to the decay time measured in isolated nanospheres with a diameter equal to the thickness of the nanotriangles. These results show that the electron-phonon energy exchanges in 2D nanosystems are strongly accelerated by confinement and this acceleration is directly governed by the smallest dimension of the nano-object

Super-Resolution mbPAINT for Optical Localization of Single-Stranded DNA

We demonstrate the application of superlocalization microscopy to identify sequence-specific portions of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) with sequence resolution of 50 nucleotides, corresponding to a spatial resolution of 30 nm. Super-resolution imaging was achieved using a variation of a single-molecule localization method, termed as ﾓmotion blurﾔ point accumulation for imaging in nanoscale topography (mbPAINT). The target ssDNA molecules were immobilized on the substrate. Short, dye-labeled, and complementary ssDNA molecules stochastically bound to the target ssDNA, with repeated binding events allowing super-resolution. Sequence specificity was demonstrated via the use of a control, noncomplementary probe. The results support the possibility of employing relatively inexpensive short ssDNAs to identify gene sequence specificity with improved resolution in comparison to the existing methods