2019/05/15 by Farooq Kyeyune, Joshua L. Botha, Kyeyune, Farooq +11 · 1 citation
Materials Science · #Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph) #Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph) #Copper-based nanomaterials and applications #FOS: Physical sciences #Gold and Silver Nanoparticles Synthesis and Applications #Optics (physics.optics) #Quantum Dots Synthesis And Properties
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1905.06042
openalex publication_date 2019/05/15 · openalex created_date 2022/07/29 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Plasmonic coupling of metallic nanoparticles and adjacent pigments can\ndramatically increase the brightness of the pigments due to the enhanced local\nelectric field. Here, we demonstrate that the fluorescence brightness of a\nsingle plant light-harvesting complex (LHCII) can be significantly enhanced\nwhen coupled to single gold nanorods (AuNRs). The AuNRs utilized in this study\nwere prepared via chemical reactions, and the hybrid system was constructed\nusing a simple and economical spin-assisted layer-by-layer technique.\nEnhancement of fluorescence brightness of up to 240-fold was observed,\naccompanied by a 109-fold decrease in the average (amplitude-weighted)\nfluorescence lifetime from approximately 3.5 ns down to 32 ps, corresponding to\nan excitation enhancement of 63-fold and emission enhancement of up to\n3.8-fold. This large enhancement is due to the strong spectral overlap of the\nlongitudinal localized surface plasmon resonance of the utilized AuNRs and the\nabsorption or emission bands of LHCII. This study provides an inexpensive\nstrategy to explore the fluorescence dynamics of weakly emitting photosynthetic\nlight-harvesting complexes at the single molecule level.\n