The main objectives of our laboratory

• Design and chemical synthesis of optical nanomaterials including metallic/bimetallic nanoparticles, polymeric nanoparticles, carbon-based nanomaterials, and quantum dots.
• Surface chemistry: surface functionalization of optical nanomaterials after the synthesis for site-specific attachment. Surface functionalization includes single-stranded DNA conjugation for addressable binding, polymer conjugation for the stability of the particles, and biomolecule attachment (aptamers, proteins, antigen-antibody, and ligands) for targeted analyte detection.
• DNA-based assembly: design and self-assembly of nanomaterials into functional optical nano systems/devices/robots/probes with nanometer precision. DNA nanotechnology allows us full control over the assembly and resulting in addressable and programmable nanodevice/nanoprobes.
• Plasmonic and Optical systems: Nano antennas, Nano-probes, optical switches that change its conformation hence detection signal upon introducing single molecule (single molecule DNA/RNA detection).
• The NanoBioPhotonic systems and devices in biomedical and energy applications:

          —Optical Biosensing (Raman sensing, Fluorescence sensing, surface plasmon resonance SPR sensing) 

          —Bioimaging (fluorescence and plasmonic-based cell/tissue imaging)

          —Energy conversion (plasmonic photocatalyst design)