Low-temperature spectroscopy of organic molecules in solid matrices: from the Shpol'skii effect to laser luminescent spectromicroscopy for all effectively emitting single molecules

Sixty years ago, in 1952, Prof. E V Shpol'skii and his colleagues were the first to see quasilinear spectra from complex organic compounds in specially selected solvents at low temperatures. Twenty years later, in 1972, a team headed by Prof. R I Personov discovered laser fluorescence line narrowing in the solid solutions of organic dyes. These two discoveries served as the basis for the field of laser selective spectroscopy of impurity centers in solids. The work in this field culminated in the techniques of spectroscopy and luminescence imaging (microscopy) of single molecules in condensed matter. Today, optical spectroscopy of impurity centers in solid solutions has become one of the most popular tools for solving a wide variety of interdisciplinary problems in physics, physical chemistry, optics and spectroscopy, biophysics, quantum optics, and nanotechnology. In this article, the development of this field is briefly reviewed, potentials of the developed methods are discussed, and some research results are highlighted.