1. Spectral resolution of molecular ensembles under ambient conditions using surface plasmon coupled fluorescence emission
- Author
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Sathish, Ramamurthy Sai, Kostov, Yordan, and Rao, Govind
- Subjects
Excited state chemistry -- Observations ,Astronomy ,Physics - Abstract
We report the ability to spectrally resolve excited-state ensembles of pyranine (Py) utilizing nanometerthick metal films as a low-cost analytical tool. Surface plasmon coupling allows to mitigate the effect of spectral broadening that is responsible for blurring the emission spectrum at room temperature, a situation common in conventional fluorescence spectroscopy. The approach is especially useful in the case when several excited-state species are present. Fluorescence emission from closely located protonated, deprotonated, and excimer species of Py couple into surface plasmons and are easily separated and observed with 11-14 fold intensity enhancements. Furthermore, the ultranarrowband photon-sorting of emission from microenvironments in a multispecies system is performed in this study using instruments that are readily available in most laboratories without employing any deconvolution procedure and/or additional dispersive optics. OCIS codes: 240.0310, 300.2350, 300.6320, 310.6188.
- Published
- 2009