Plasmonic Modes and Fluorescence Enhancement Coupling Mechanism: A Case with a Nanostructured Grating

The recent development and technological improvement in dealing with plasmonic metasurfaces has triggered a series of interesting applications related to sensing challenges. Fluorescence has been one of the most studied tools within such a context. With this in mind, we used some well characterized structures supporting plasmonic resonances to study their influence on the emission efficiency of a fluorophore. An extended optical analysis and a complementary investigation through finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations have been combined to understand the coupling mechanism between the excitation of plasmonic modes and the fluorescence absorption and emission processes. The results provide evidence of the spectral shape dependence of fluorescence on the plasmonic field distribution together with a further relationship connected with the enhancement of its signal. It has made evident that the spectral region characterized by the largest relative enhancement closely corresponds to the strongest signatures of the plasmonic modes, as described by both the optical measurements and the FDTD findings.