2126
Luminescence Studies of Single Molecule Electron Transfer Events

Tuesday, 15 May 2018: 14:20
Room 620 (Washington State Convention Center)
D. Han, K. Fu, G. Crouch, S. R. Kwon, and P. W. Bohn (University of Notre Dame)
Single electron transfer events in both immobilized and freely diffusing redox-active molecules can now be studied with some facility using a special kind of bimodal nanoelectrochemical-nanophotonic architecture – the electrochemical zero-mode waveguide (E-ZMW). The E-ZMW consists of a high density array of recessed dual-ring electrode nanopores that can moderate the interaction between single electron-transfer events and fluorescence emission, in the zeptoliter optical confinement volume of a zero-mode waveguide. The dual optical-electrochemical functionality makes it possible to perform single molecule spectroelectrochemical measurements under redox cycling conditions – both when the upper electrode is potential-controlled and using self-induced redox cycling. These have been performed with flavin mononucleotide, FMN, whose isoalloxazine chromophore is fluorescent in the oxidized state and dark in the reduced state, FMNH2. This property permits the redox state of single FMN molecules to be followed by fluorescence, with each high/low luminescence transition signaling single molecule cycling. Capture efficiencies are characterized as a function of the potential applied to the upper ring electrode, and single molecule electrochemical-spectroscopic cross-correlation measurements are performed as a function of nanopore occupancy down to <n> ~0.001.