The role of silver and gold nanoparticles in enhancing luminescence of europium complexes.

ABSTRACT

The influence of 12 nm spherical silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) and 20 nm spherical gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) on the luminescence of europium complex Eu(TTFA)3 were studied. When 350 nm is chosen as the incident light, the maximum enhancement factor of the complexes mixed with AgNPs is about 2.5 at the wavelength of 612 nm. Besides the enhancement of the localized field, the overlap between the localized surface plasmon resonance spectra of nanoparticles and the absorption band of fluorescent molecules is another important factor for excitation field enhancement. By means of the quasi-static approximation theory, the distribution of the electric field around a single spherical metallic nanopaticle illuminated by plane wave was calculated. The simulation results show that the field enhancement effect is more obvious when the incident light is close to the resonance of the metallic nanoparticle, which could be demonstrated by our following experimental results. The distribution of the electric field under the same conditions was also simulated through the COMSOL software. The results are consistent with those of the quasi-static approximation theory.