Coherent Electron Transport in Metamaterials of Integrated Semiconductor Quantum Dots and Biomolecules for Medical Imaging Applications

The fundamental research of many-body interactions and coherent transport of single particle elementary excitations exploiting strong-light matter interactions in artificial molecular metamaterials for sensing having practical technological relevance is addressed. Confinement and coherent transport of elementary electron-hole excitations are directly monitored by high-spectral-resolution micro-Raman and photoluminescence spectroscopes in isolated semiconductor quantum dots. Crystalline nanostructures of nc-Si/SiO2 quantum dots as well as their functionalization by biomolecules with fabrication of nano-metamaterials will be considered. It has been found that these complexes are unique objects for the elucidation of the specific features in the manifestation of new quantum-size effects in biomacromolecules. It has been demonstrated that the possibility exists of detecting and recording in such nano-biomacromolecule metamaterials spectrally selective resonance enhancement of Raman scattering intensity in fluctuations of nucleotide molecules due to coherent nonradiative transfer of a photoexcited electron and a hole at the interface of the complex. This dynamic optical imaging of spectral responses can be of applied interest for the development of nanobiophotonic technologies for development label-free probes in a broader perspective for vital applications including early diagnosis of diseases at the molecular level.