Homodyne polarization microscopy and spectroscopy

Our team has developed an optical setup based on homodyne polarization microscopy for the study of one-dimensional nanostructures. This technique exploits the strong optical anisotropy of such objects to isolate their signal from the intense background of the surrounding environment through polarization selection.

The signal is further amplified by homodyning, an interferometric method in which an intense reference beam (local oscillator) from the same source is modulated by the signal of interest.

This setup enables the observation of individual carbon nanotubes, particularly directly on substrates, and the measurement of their optical spectra in the visible range.

It has been successfully used to image individual nanotubes under actual growth conditions (on a substrate and at atmospheric pressure), allowing us to determine their growth kinetics at the single-nanotube scale.

References :

• Monniello, L., Tran, H. N., Vialla, R., Prévot, G., Tahir, S., Michel, T., & Jourdain, V. (2019). Comprehensive model of the optical spectra of carbon nanotubes on a substrate by polarized microscopy. Physical Review B, 99(11), 115431.