Probing, Sensing, and Fluorescence Enhancement with Single Gold Nanorods

Gold nanorods with dimensions around 10-100 nm present original optical properties. Their main advantages are the tunability from 600 to 1000 nm of their main absorption band, and its high intensity, stemming from the good conducting properties of gold in this spectral range. Gold nanorods have been applied to tracking, probing, sensing, and manipulation experiments. Here, we discuss experiments done with single gold nanorods with emphasis on recent results from our group.