NanoElectroPhotonics (in short, nanoEPics) is a scientific team effort to visualize nanoscale movements of (single) electrons by optical methods. We are looking at single-electron processes (mostly in the classical or semi-classical descriptions) such as charging events of isolated nanoscale islands due to hopping or chemical reactions. To be able to isolate these events, with the help of Coulomb blockade or discrete activation energy, we have to work on single molecules or nanoscale clusters. This objects present an optical cross sections much smaller than the diffraction limit. The weak interaction of light and nanoscale matter makes optical detection of these processes challenging. Electrostatic interactions on the other hand are quite strong and omnipresent, making it quite difficult to isolate single electron processes in the noisy background of the sea of electrons in solids. We are convinced both challenges can be tackled simultaneously and optical detection of many single electron processes is possible and certainly a worthwhile endeavor. Our approaches are semi-jokingly summarized in our slogan: “pushing electrons, detecting photons”.

Since 2015, nanoEPics has become part of the Physics of Light in Complex Systems group at Utrecht University.