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2025. 01. 23 -

J. Anulytė, who studies the control of light in nanostructures, becomes a new PhD

Dr. Justina Anulytė. Photo: FTMC
On 23 January, the first defence of a doctoral thesis by one of our scientists this year took place. It was successfully passed by Dr. Justina Anulytė, a physicist from the FTMC Department of Laser Technologes, who wrote the thesis "Strongly coupled extended plasmonic states for coherent energy exchange" (academic supervisor: Prof. Dr. Zigmas Balevičius).
 
Congratulations to our colleague, we are very happy and wish new achievements!
 
Justina's thesis is on nanophotonics - the science of controlling light in very small structures. Such nanoparticles are being tested for the next generation of nano-lasers, optical biosensors or even quantum information transfer.
 
 
(Dr. Justina Anulytė. Photo: Hernandez & Sorokina / FTMC)
 
"This thesis investigated the strong coupling regime between light and matter, where hybrid light-matter states are formed between surface light waves (plasmon polaritons) and fluorescent organic molecular derivatives (excitons)," says the physicist.
 
Didn't understand anything? You can read our article describing these works in a clear and (we hope!) understandable way. Now, let's briefly recall what each of the above terms means.
 
Strong coupling regime is a physical phenomenon in which two separate systems (such as light and matter) begin to interact with each other so strongly that they begin to behave almost as one new combined entity. Something like young lovers who can't stay away from each other.
 
Plasmon polaritons are surface electromagnetic waves on thin metal layers. Something like "water surface circles" between metal and air.
 
Excitons are tiny "derivatives" that combine a photon of light with the material being studied in the lab.
 
 
(Dr. Justina Anulytė presented her work to LRT TV. Photo: FTMC)
 
The topic is complex and requires a deep knowledge of physics. However, it is useful to know that the strong coupling regime is important for the development of advanced devices such as quantum computers, plasmonic lasers and controlling the speed of photochemical reactions.
 
Justina's work also involves the study of fluorescent particles. This technique allows you to see and study tiny objects, such as nanoparticles, molecules or cells, that would normally be invisible. How does it work? Certain particles are painted with a special dye - and then, when placed in a solution or other medium, they glow when a laser is shone on them, making them visible to scientists and thus "tagging" specific molecules or cells.
 
Fluorescence is therefore very important in nanotechnology, medicine, biology and other scientific fields. But of course there are various challenges. One of these is the photobleaching effect, where environmental conditions cause molecules to go out of glow faster than desired. Here, an FTMC physicist and her colleagues have come up with a brilliant solution.
 
"In this thesis, it was shown that the strong coupling regime between surface plasmon modes and excitons suppresses the photobleaching phenomenon in organic dye molecules, allowing them to glow for up to dozens of times longer," says Justina.
 
 
(FTMC Department of Laser Technologies, Plasmonics and Nanophotonics Laboratory, Dr. Justina Anulytė, Prof. Dr. Zigmas Balevičius and Dr. Ernesta Bužavaitė-Vertelienė. Photo: Hernandez & Sorokina / FTMC)
 
She described this achievement in the prestigious international scientific journal Nanophotonics and was the lead author of the paper. 
 
In her thesis, the young PhD student also showed that her findings can be applied to the development of highly sensitive quantum optical biosensors. And that's not all: the researcher hopes that the strong coupling regime can also be used in other fields:
 
"This phenomenon in various nanoparticles will be exploited in future chips by integrating nano-lasers with ultra-low power consumption. It will also be useful in the development of single photon laser sources."
 
Written Simonas Bendžius
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