Abstract
This study demonstrates the metal-enhanced fluorescence of adenine using aluminum nanoparticle arrays in the deep UV range. It achieves the reproducible intensity enhancement of intrinsic fluorescence up to 80 on well-defined aluminum nanoparticle arrays at 257 nm excitation. In addition to a high signal enhancement, a strong modification of the fluorescence emission spectrum of adenine is observed. This study illustrates that the label-free detection of DNA bases and proteins that have low intrinsic fluorescence and absorption bands in the deep UV range can be facilitated using aluminum nanostructures.
Highlights
Fluorescence-based techniques are essential methods for detecting, monitoring, and studying molecules, with widespread applications in various fields including biosciences, chemistry, medicine, and materials science [1,2]
The observed enhancement is about one order of magnitude higher than the values found in most experimental reports, in particular those on metal-enhanced fluorescence (MEF) in the DUV range [16, 19]
The great tunability of Al NPs means that the plasmon resonances are highly sensitive to geometry and size, and ensembles of Al NPs of small size and geometry dispersion are crucial to obtain sharp and pronounced plasmon resonances
Summary
Fluorescence-based techniques are essential methods for detecting, monitoring, and studying molecules, with widespread applications in various fields including biosciences, chemistry, medicine, and materials science [1,2]. The metal nanostructure can modify the radiation pattern, which can result in increased collection efficiency [8] Together, these three effects may dramatically increase the fluorescence signal and enable detection of low-yield fluorophores. These three effects may dramatically increase the fluorescence signal and enable detection of low-yield fluorophores These phenomena are referred to as surface-enhanced fluorescence (SEF) [9] or metal-enhanced fluorescence (MEF) [10]. Corrugated Al nanostructures were employed to suitably modify fluorescence emission direction and increase collection efficiency, and detection sensitivity [17,18]. It has been predicted that up to 100-fold enhancement in the quantum yield can be achieved by using Al plasmonic antennas that suitably modify the local field and the emission pattern from the fluorophore. In the following we report on a systematic investigation of MEF in the DUV range in the context of well-defined plasmonic nanostructures, and show the potential of DUV-MEF for detecting a biologically important molecule with low intrinsic fluorescence
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