Metal-Enhanced Fluorescence from Nanoparticulate Zinc Films

A detailed study of metal-enhanced fluorescence (MEF) from fluorophores in the blue-to-red spectral region placed in close proximity to thermally evaporated zinc nanostructured films is reported. The zinc nanostructured films were deposited onto glass microscope slides as individual particles and were 1-10 nm in height and 20-100 nm in width, as characterized by Atomic Force Microscopy. The surface plasmon resonance peak of the zinc nanostructured films was similar to 400 nm. Finite-difference time-domain calculations for single and multiple nanostructures organized in a staggered fashion on a solid support predict, as expected, that the electric fields are concentrated both around and between the nanostructures. Additionally, Mie scattering calculations show that the absorption and scattering components of the extinction spectrum are dominant in the UV and visible spectral ranges, respectively. Enhanced fluorescence, emission accompanied by no significant changes in excited-state lifetimes of fluorophores with emission wavelengths in the visible blue-to-red spectral range near-to zinc nanostructured films were observed, implying that MEF from zinc nanostructured films is mostly due to an electric field enhancement effect.