Photonic effects on the fluorescence lifetimes of dyes in thin PVA layers

Abstract

In this paper we investigate the expected change in fluorescent decay rate when a fluorophore in aqueous solution is moved to a thin spin-coated layer of poly(vinyl alcohol). We take into account the local field effect due to the change in the refractive index of the medium around the fluorophore and the photonic effect due to the layers. The obtained results are compared with experimental results for the organic dye Atto565 and the fluorescent protein mCherry. We find that the effects for the organic dye can be well described with the model, for the fluorescent protein (FP) the model is less accurate. We discuss the possible explanations for this.