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Optical detection and spectroscopy of single molecules in a solid
Phys. Rev. Lett. 62, 2535 – Published 22 May, 1989
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.62.2535
Abstract
Using two different double-modulation techniques, we have observed the optical-absorption spectrum of single dopant molecules of pentacene in a p-terphenyl host crystal at liquid-helium temperatures. To achieve this, frequency-modulation spectroscopy was combined either with Stark or ultrasonic modulation to remove interfering background signals from residual amplitude modulation, and the number of molecules in resonance was reduced to one by operating in the wings of the inhomogeneous line. Triplet bottleneck saturation appears to be suppressed in the single-molecule regime.
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