%0 Journal Article %T Detecting a Zeptogram of Pyridine with a Hybrid Plasmonic–Photonic Nanosensor %+ Lumière, nanomatériaux et nanotechnologies (L2n) %A Proust, Julien %A Martin, Jérôme %A Gérard, Davy %A Bijeon, Jean-Louis %A Plain, Jerome %< avec comité de lecture %J ACS Sensors %I American Chemical Society %V 4 %N 3 %P 586-594 %8 2019-03-22 %D 2019 %R 10.1021/acssensors.8b01068 %K limit of detection %K pyridine %K nanosensors %K surface plasmons %K optical antennas %K molecular weighing scales %Z Engineering Sciences [physics]/Optics / Photonic %Z Engineering Sciences [physics]/Micro and nanotechnologies/MicroelectronicsJournal articles %X Thanks to their small sensing volume, nanosensors based on localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPR) allow the detection of minute amounts of analytes, down to the single-molecule limit. However, the detected analytes are often large molecules, such as proteins. The detection of small molecules remains largely unexplored. Here, we use a hybrid photonic–plasmonic nanosensor to detect a small target molecule (pyridine). The sensor’s design is based on a dielectric photonic microstructure acting as an antenna, which efficiently funnels light toward a plasmonic transducer and enhances the detection efficiency. This sensor exhibits a limit of detection as small as 10–14 mol L–1. Using a calibration procedure based on electrodynamical numerical simulations, we compute the number of detected molecules. This yields a limit of detection in mass of 4 zeptograms (1 zg = 10–21 g), a record value for plasmonic molecular sensors. Our system can hence be seen as an optical molecular weighing scale, enabling room temperature detection of mass at the zeptogram scale. %G English %2 https://utt.hal.science/hal-02301706/document %2 https://utt.hal.science/hal-02301706/file/Pointes-forreview.pdf %L hal-02301706 %U https://utt.hal.science/hal-02301706 %~ CNRS %~ UNIV-TROYES %~ UTT %~ ANR %~ UTT-FULL-TEXT