Jon Camden

Research Interests

It is well known that plasmonic nanostructures are capable of harvesting light and concentrating it in the near field. This special behavior results from the collective oscillation of the conduction electrons in a metallic nanostructure, and has enabled a plethora of exciting applications such as plasmon-enhanced solar cells, photonic circuits, superlenses, chemical and biological sensing, and the detection of single molecules. Underlying many of these processes is the ability of plasmon excitation to greatly enhance electromagnetic fields at the particle surface. The Camden group is working to develop new applications of plasmonic nanostructures and to understand fundamental features of the molecule-plasmon couplings underlying these applications. Our current research efforts include: (1) Understanding the flow of plasmonic energy from nanoparticles at interfaces and into molecules, (2) Development of fast, portable, and cost-effective analytical methods for small molecules based on SERS, and (3) Exploration of surface-enhanced nonlinear spectroscopy, and (4) Direct imaging of plasmon-enhanced fields using electron microscopy.