Expert to Discuss Spectroscopy and Nanoparticles

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Reuven Gordon

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Reuven Gordon, a specialist in the rapidly growing area of nanoplasmonics, will present a lecture on spectroscopy and nanoparticles on Thursday, April 30, in Room 144 of the Chemistry Building on the University of Arkansas campus.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, begins at 4 p.m.

Arkansas Laserbacks, the U of A student chapter of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, is sponsoring Gordon’s talk, titled, “Extraordinary Acoustic Raman (EAR): Listening to Proteins.”

Gordon is the Canada Research Chair in Nanoplasmonics at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. Nanoplasmonics is a subfield of nano-optics and nanophotonics and deals with oscillations of electrons in metallic nanoparticles and nanostructures.

His lecture will discuss some of his recent work published in the journal Nature Photonics.

Colloidal quantum dots, proteins, viruses, DNA and all other nanoparticles have acoustic vibrations that can act as “fingerprints” to identify their shape, size and mechanical properties, yet high-resolution Raman spectroscopy in this low-energy range lacked behind.

Gordon, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, will discuss his use of introduce extra-ordinary acoustic Raman (EAR) spectroscopy, a new technique to measure the Raman-active vibrations of single isolated nanoparticles. He will show how it can be used to distinguish proteins and measure material anisotropy in nanoparticles. He will also discuss more generally nanoaperture optical tweezers and their applications to sensing and studying protein interactions.

Gordon earned a doctorate in physics from the University of Cambridge. He is co-inventor for three patents and four patent applications and is recognized as an “Outstanding Referee” by the American Physical Society.

For more information about Gordon’s talk or availability while he is on campus, e-mail SPIE chapter faculty adviser Joseph B. Herzog at jbherzog@uark.edu.