Surface Plasmon-Coupled Emission for Effective Collection and Transformation of Emission into Directional Radiation

Abstract

In this study, we describe another phenomenon that occurs when a fluorophore is near a metal. Under certain circumstances a fluorophore can couple with a continuous metallic surface to create groups of oscillating electrons called surface plasmons. If the metal film is thin and on an appropriate substrate the plasmons radiate their energy into the substrate. We call this phenomenon surface plasmon coupled emission (SPCE). There are numerous potential applications for this phenomenon that efficiently collects the emission and transforms it into directional radiation.