Nanophotonic enhancement of the Förster resonance energy transfer rate on single DNA molecules

Abstract

Nanophotonics achieves accurate control over the luminescence properties of a single quantum emitter by tailoring the light-matter interaction at the nanoscale and modifying the local density of optical states (LDOS). This paradigm could also benefit to Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) by enhancing the near-field electromagnetic interaction between two fluorescent emitters. Despite the wide applications of FRET in nanosciences, using nanophotonics to enhance FRET remains a debated and complex challenge. Here, we demonstrate enhanced energy transfer within single donor-acceptor fluorophore pairs confined in gold nanoapertures. Experiments monitoring both the donor and the acceptor emission photodynamics at the single molecule level clearly establish a linear dependence of the FRET rate on the LDOS in nanoapertures. These findings are applied to enhance the FRET rate in nanoapertures up to six times, demonstrating that nanophotonics can be used to intensify the near-field energy transfer and improve the biophotonic applications of FRET.

References in corpus (3)

• Theory of plasmon-enhanced Foerster energy transfer in optically-excited semiconductor and metal nanoparticles
• Nanophotonic control of Forster Resonance Energy Transfer
• Intermolecular energy transfer in the presence of dispersing and absorbing media

Cited by in corpus (18)

• DNA origami
• Local density of states for nanoplasmonics
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• Plasmon-assisted Förster resonance energy transfer at the single-molecule level in the moderate quenching regime
• Foerster resonance energy transfer rate and local density of optical states are uncorrelated in any dielectric nanophotonic medium
• Fundamental figures of merit for engineering Forster resonance energy transfer
• Optical Antenna-based Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy to Probe the Nanoscale Dynamics of Biological Membranes
• Fluorescence energy transfer enhancement in aluminum nanoapertures
• Simultaneously giant enhancement of Forster resonance energy transfer rate and efficiency based on plasmonic excitations
• Site-selective functionalization of plasmonic nanopores for enhanced fluorescence and Förster Resonance Energy Transfer
• Direct imaging of the energy transfer enhancement between two dipoles in a photonic cavity
• Enhancement of Resonant Energy Transfer Due to Evanescent-wave from the Metal
• Overcoming the bottleneck for quantum computations of complex nanophotonic structures: Purcell and FRET calculations using a rigorous mode hybridization method
• Ag colloids and arrays for plasmonic non-radiative energy transfer from quantum dots to a quantum well
• Nanophotonic boost of intermolecular energy transfer
• Long-range Single Molecule Förster Resonance Energy Transfer Between Alexa Dyes in Zero-Mode Waveguides
• Tuning resonance energy transfer with magneto-optical properties of graphene
• Purcell-enhanced solid-state laser cooling