Abstract

The development of the quadrupole levitation balance, has led spectroscopic studies of the characteristics of levitated micron-sized droplets(1-7). Experiments not available for other systems arise with this "world's smallest test-tube". In one example it was shown that very high-Q modes occuring for electromagnetic radiation in these nearly perfect spheres permits highly efficient transfer of energy between molecules seperated by distances far larger than those characteristic for Foerster transfer(8). In another application, the possibility of using a sufficiently small droplet consisting of a non-fluorescent solvent as host with one or a few fluorescent molecules present was shown to allow detection of the presence of a single molecule of rhodamine(9).

© 1992 Optical Society of America