'Nanotorch' highlights ultrafast biochemical reactions

Life depends on remarkable arrays of biochemical reactions. Understanding the workings of biomolecules involves real-time monitoring of these reactions. Happening in only tiny fractions of a millisecond, this is very difficult even with highly sensitive optical instruments. Therefore, Ph.D. researcher Yuyang Wang uses a 'plasmonic nanotorch," a single metal nanoparticle that illuminates single fluorescent molecules, making it possible now to detect those ultrafast biochemical reactions. Wang defends his Ph.D. on 19 June.