Measuring nanoparticles shape by structured illumination

Abstract

Exploiting the size and shape of nanoparticles is critical for engineering the optical and mechanical properties of nanoparticle systems that are ubiquitous in everyday life. However, accurate determination of nanoparticle morphology usually requires elaborated methods such as XRD or TEM, which are not suitable for non-invasive and rapid control. Dynamic light scattering on the other hand, relies on the motion of nanoparticles and mixes different rotational and translational diffusion coefficients to infer synthetic information about the shape in terms of effective hydrodynamic characteristics. Here, we introduce a new scattering approach for measuring shape. We demonstrate analytically, numerically, and experimentally that the contrast of low-intensity fluctuations arising from the scattering of classically entangled optical fields allows determining the polarimetric anisotropy of nanoparticles. By leveraging the active variation of illumination structuring, we control the non-Gaussian statistics of the measured fluctuations, which, in turn, provides means to improve the measurement sensitivity. This technique offers practical opportunities for applications ranging from molecular chemistry to drug delivery to nanostructures synthesis where the real-time, quantitative assessment of nanoparticles shapes is indispensable.