Strong extinction of a laser beam by a single molecule

Gerhardt, I.; Wrigge, G.; Bushev, P.; Zumofen, G.; Pfab, R.; Sandoghdar, V.

Strong extinction of a laser beam by a single molecule

Authors

Description

We present an experiment where a single molecule strongly affects the amplitude and phase of a laser field emerging from a subwavelength aperture. We achieve a visibility of -6% in direct and +10% in cross-polarized detection schemes. Our analysis shows that a close to full extinction should be possible using near-field excitation.
5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to PRL