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Utilization of Plasmonic and Photonic Crystal Nanostructures for Enhanced Micro- and Nanoparticle Manipulation
Published on: September 27, 2011
Plasmonic-enhanced molecular fluorescence within isolated bowtie nano-apertures
Guowei Lu1, Wenqiang Li, Tianyue Zhang
1State Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics and Department of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
ACS Nano
|January 18, 2012
Summary
We demonstrate how bowtie nano-apertures enhance molecular fluorescence. These nanostructures control fluorescence and detection volume, enabling precise nanoscale measurements for biological analysis.
Area of Science:
- Plasmonics
- Nanophotonics
- Molecular Spectroscopy
Background:
- Molecular fluorescence is crucial for biological analysis.
- Controlling fluorescence at the nanoscale is challenging.
- Plasmonic nanostructures offer potential for enhanced optical signals.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate polarization-dependent, plasmonic-enhanced molecular fluorescence.
- To explore the use of bowtie nano-apertures (BNAs) for controlling fluorescence.
- To assess the potential of BNAs for nanoscale detection in biological applications.
Main Methods:
- Fabrication of isolated bowtie nano-apertures (BNAs) in aluminum films.
- Experimental measurement of polarization-dependent molecular fluorescence.
- Tuning excitation light polarization and BNA size to control fluorescence.
- Numerical simulations to validate experimental observations.
Main Results:
- BNAs efficiently control molecular fluorescence count rate and decay lifetime.
- Nanoscale detection volumes are achieved by tuning excitation polarization or BNA size.
- Large BNAs (>300 nm) exhibit high plasmonic-enhanced fluorescence efficiency.
- Detection volume confinement below the subdiffraction limit was observed.
Conclusions:
- BNAs offer effective control over plasmonic-enhanced molecular fluorescence.
- BNAs enable nanoscale confinement of detection volumes.
- BNAs show significant potential for single-molecule biological analysis.
