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Abstract

We present a powerful technique to fully characterize individual gold nanorods by using confocal microscopy in combination with higher order laser modes. We obtain topological information far beyond the optical resolution limit, although the used method is diffraction limited. We perform, for the first time, the imaging of gold nanorods by recording simultaneously their scattering and luminescence signal. In the future, this might permit to extent the results achieved already in [1] to a 3D system. Moreover, the scattering pattern is strongly dependent on the phase relation between the light scattered and reflected at the sample interface, while the luminescence pattern does not depend on this phase relation. By exploiting an index matched sample geometry, we were able to omit the phase relation and therefore detect the pure scattering signal and qualitatively compare it with the luminescence one. Furthermore, as previously shown [2, 3], our technique is capable to track the rotation of single noble metal nanorods. We show that measuring the rotation rate of gold nanorods might be useful to estimate the local viscosity of the surrounding medium.