TITLE: A review of plasmon-fluorophore interactions

SPEAKER: Professor Chandran R. Sabanayagam

TIME: Friday Sept. 23, 2005 at 4:00 PM

PLACE: George P. Williams, Jr. Lecture Hall, (Olin 101)

Surface plasmons are density waves of electrons that travel along the surface of a metal; the plasmons are generated when light impinges a metal and have the same characteristic frequencies as the incident light. Interestingly, an excited dye in the vicinity of heterogeneous silver nanoparticles displays metal-enhanced fluorescence due to near-field interactions with surface plasmons. The fluorophore-plasmon coupling results in a number of important spectral changes of the fluorophore including: increased quantum yield, decreased lifetime, increased photostability, release of self-quencing and enhanced resonance energy transfer. Additionally, excited fluorophores immobilized near a continuous thin metallic surface can induce surface plasmons. This phenomenon, termed surface plasmon-coupled emission (SPCE), can be viewed as the reverse process of surface plasmon resonance absorption by thin metal films. A particularly interesting feature of SPCE is that approximately 50% of the emission from the induced surface plasmons can be collected because emission is highly directional, unlike the isotropic fluorescence of free dyes. This talk will review plasmon-fluorophore interactions and provide some practical applications in biomedical sensing and imaging.

100 Olin Physical Laboratory, 7507 Reynolda Station Wake Forest University Winston-Salem, NC 27109-7507 Phone: (336) 758-5337, FAX: (336) 758-6142 E-mail: wfuphys@wfu.edu	Quick Links Academics Research People Colloquia Info Physics