Professor Randy Goldsmith on new technique to unlock a molecule’...

UW-Madison scientists have developed a new technique for identifying and analyzing a single molecule.

The new development, published in the May edition of the journal Nature, is the most sensitive way of identifying single molecules yet. With a variety of applications in a wide variety of scientific fields, it offers a future of “new microscopic perspective of unprecedented detail.”

The technique uses mirrors and fiberoptic cables to illuminate microcavities, or optical microresonators —tiny spaces where light is briefly trapped in both space and time — in order to illuminate a molecule’s presence. Not only can microcavities help identify a molecule, they can also help determine a molecule’s shape and other qualities.

The technique was developed by a team of researchers led by Dr. Randy Goldsmith, a professor of chemistry at UW-Madison. He heads up the Goldsmith Group, which studies chemical and biophysical systems via single-molecule techniques (what the group website describes as a “profound and absolutely delightful way of doing science”).

Goldsmith earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry and biology at Cornell University, his PhD from Northwestern while studying electron transfer, and completed postdoctoral work at Stanford. In 2022, he was named a Schmidt Science Polymath. On this edition of the Perpetual Notion Machine, he joins host Matthew Leeford in the studio to talk more about his work.

Feature image used with permission, courtesy of Dr. Randy Goldsmith. 

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