Tunable fluorescence lifetime of Eu-PMMA films with plasmonic nanostructures for multiplexing

A method to tune fluorescence lifetime of Eu-PMMA films is proposed, which consists of self-assembled gold nanorods on glass substrate covered by Eu-PMMA shell. The fluorescence lifetime is tunable in a wide range, and depends on aspect ratio and mutual distance of gold nanorods. In a single red color emission channel, more than six distinct fluorescence lifetime populations ranging from 356 to 513 μs are obtained. Through theoretical calculation, we attribute tunable fluorescence lifetime to the change of radiative and nonradiative decay rate and density of photon states. In addition, we use these as-prepared Eu-PMMA films for security data storage to demonstrate optical multiplexing applications. The optical multiplexing experiments show an interesting pseudo-information "8" and conceal the real messages "2" and "6".