Dependence of Fluorescence Intensity on the Spectral Overlap between Fluorophores and Plasmon Resonant Single Silver Nanoparticles

• Published in: Nano letters Vol. 7; no. 3; pp. 690 - 696
• Main Authors: Chen, Yeechi, Munechika, Keiko, Ginger, David S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Chemical Society 01.03.2007
• Subjects: Base Sequence; Collective excitations (including excitons, polarons, plasmons and other charge-density excitations); Condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties; Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; DNA - chemistry; Electronic structure and electrical properties of surfaces, interfaces, thin films and low-dimensional structures; Exact sciences and technology; Fluorescent Dyes - chemistry; Materials science; Metal Nanoparticles - chemistry; Metal Nanoparticles - ultrastructure; Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; Microscopy, Fluorescence; Nanoscale materials and structures: fabrication and characterization; Nanotechnology; Other topics in nanoscale materials and structures; Physics; Scattering, Radiation; Silver - chemistry; Surface and interface electron states; Surface Plasmon Resonance; Nanoparticles; Silver; Organic dye; DNA; Optical properties; Fluorescence; Plasmons; Surface plasmon resonance; Nanostructured materials; Fluorescence microscopy
• ISSN: 1530-6984; 1530-6992
• DOI: 10.1021/nl062795z

We investigate the fluorescence from dyes coupled to individual DNA-functionalized metal nanoparticles. We use single-particle darkfield scattering and fluorescence microscopy to correlate the fluorescence intensity of the dyes with the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) spectra of the individual metal nanoparticles to which they are attached. For each of three different dyes, we observe a strong correlation between the fluorescence intensity of the dye and the degree of spectral overlap with the plasmon resonance of the nanoparticle. On average, we observe the brightest fluorescence from dyes attached to metal nanoparticles that have a LSPR scattering peak ∼40−120 meV higher in energy than the emission peak of the fluorophore. These results should prove useful for understanding and optimizing metal-enhanced fluorescence.