C60 as an active smart spacer material on silver thin film substrates for enhanced surface plasmon coupled emission

In this study, we present the use of C60 as an active spacer material on a silver (Ag) based surface plasmon coupled emission (SPCE) platform. In addition to its primary role of protecting the Ag thin film from oxidation, the incorporation of C60 facilitated the achievement of a 30-fold enhancement in the emission intensity of rhodamine B (RhB) fluorophore. The high signal yield was attributed to the unique π-π interactions between C60 thin films and RhB, which enabled efficient transfer of energy of RhB emission to Ag plasmon modes. Furthermore, minor variations in the C60 film thickness yielded large changes in the enhancement and angularity properties of the SPCE signal, which can be exploited for sensing applications. Finally, the low-cost fabrication process of the Ag-C60 thin film stacks render C60 based SPCE substrates ideal, for the economic and simplistic detection of analytes.