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Dr. Richard Taylor

  • Postdoctoral Fellow
  • Room: A.3.242
  • Telephone: +49 9131 7133352
  • E-mail

I am interested in the potential of interferometric scattering microscopy to uncover the hidden dynamics of biology at the nanoscale, in particular, in exploring what we can learn about membrane organization and cellular function. I am also excited to develop nanofluidic tools to facilitate novel investigations into single-cell biology via advanced optical microscopies.

2012

Simple Composite Dipole Model for the Optical Modes of Strongly-Coupled Plasmonic Nanoparticle Aggregates

Richard W. Taylor, Rubén Esteban, Sumeet Mahajan, Roger Coulston, Oren A. Scherman, Javier Aizpurua, Jeremy J. Baumberg

The Journal of Physical Chemistry C 116 25044-25051 (2012) | Journal

Self-assembled strongly coupled plasmonic aggregates exhibit optical spectra which show complex plasmonic resonances. To understand the optics of such systems, we introduce an effective composite dipole model extending previous effective models of aggregates into the plasmonic domain. The ingredients in this model are found by comparing the time-resolved extinction of self-assembling growing aggregates of gold nanoparticles spaced by rigid sub-nm gaps to recent rigorous electromagnetic simulations of this geometry. The highly reproducible spectral signatures from experiments match our simulations, confirming that the electromagnetic response of such fractal plasmonic clusters can be well-understood in terms of embedded straight chains of plasmonically coupled nanoparticles surrounded by an optically decoupled halo of dimers. We show how to derive simple analytical formulas that lead to rapid extraction of key parameters from such experimental spectra and which properly account for the long-wavelength lineshapes. In particular, we find these effective parameters describe the extent of plasmon delocalization along such chains, the eccentricity of these optically dominant cores, and the fraction of nanoparticles active within them. This underpins applications which depend on spectral selectivity and field enhancements in such tightly coupled plasmonic systems.

Direct Visualization of Symmetry Breaking During Janus Nanoparticle Formation

Gabriel Loget, Tung C. Lee, Richard W. Taylor, Sumeet Mahajan, Olivia Nicoletti, Samuel T. Jones, Richard J. Coulston, Véronique Lapeyre, Patrick Garrigue, et al.

Small 8 2698-2703 (2012) | Journal

The straightforward synthesis of Janus nanoparticles composed of Ag and AgBr is reported. For their formation, cucurbit[n]uril (CB)-stabilized AgBr nanoparticles are first generated in water by precipitation. Subsequent irradiation with an electron beam transforms a fraction of each AgBr nanoparticle into Ag⁰, leading to well-defined Janus particles, stabilized by the binding of CB to the surface of both AgBr and Ag⁰. With the silver ion reduction being triggered by the electron beam, the progress of the transformation can be directly monitored with a transmission electron microscope.

How Chain Plasmons Govern the Optical Response in Strongly Interacting Self-Assembled Metallic Clusters of Nanoparticles

Ruben Esteban, Richard W. Taylor, Jeremy J. Baumberg, Javier Aizpurua

Langmuir 28 8881-8890 (2012) | Journal

Self-assembled clusters of metallic nanoparticles separated by nanometric gaps generate strong plasmonic modes that support both intense and localized near fields. These are widely used in ultrasensitive chemical and biological sensing applications via surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). Due to challenges in controlling nanoscale cluster structures—on which the optical response critically depends—generalized models have been developed to describe the morphologies typically fabricated. Here, rigorous electrodynamic calculations are used to study clusters composed of around 100 nanospheres, separated by ~1 nm gaps defined by macrocyclic molecular linkers used in experiments. Three-dimensional cluster structures of moderate compactness are particularly relevant, resembling self-assembled clusters formed under diffusion-limited aggregation. Simulations of far-field extinction spectra show strong agreement with experiments, validating the assumed morphologies.<br><br>The optical response of these 2D and 3D clusters can be understood in terms of resonant chains of varying lengths. Importantly, a distinction emerges between short- and long-chain modes: high-energy modes from dimers and short chains tend to localize at the periphery, while low-energy modes from longer chains appear deeper inside the structure. Various isolated 1D chain configurations are further analyzed as model units, showing their optical responses are robust against structural disorder. This study provides an intuitive framework for understanding the optical behavior of complex nanoparticle aggregates and may be extended to other systems involving large numbers of strongly interacting particles.

I was born in the United Kingdom where I completed my graduate studies, gaining a Masters (1st, Hons) in Physics from the University of Birmingham in 2009. Thereafter I completed my doctoral studies in 2013 in the Nanophotonics group of Prof. Jeremy J. Baumberg at the University of Cambridge. The subject of my doctoral work was ‘On the sub-nm plasmonics of gold nanoparticles clusters’, which led to a patent for ‘Plasmonic junctions for surface-enhanced spectroscopy’. In 2013 I joined the group of Prof. Sandoghdar to develop interferometric scattering microscopy for application to live cells, becoming a Humboldt Postdoctoral fellow in 2015. In addition to research activities, I also enjoy aiding efforts for scientific outreach, and I also co-organised the first international workshop on interferometric scattering microscopy in 2020.

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