Is there a proper figure of merit for a plasmonic structure involved in metal-enhanced fluorescence?

Abstract

A suitability of a nanostructure for a metal-enhanced fluorescence (MEF) is usually assessed from the value of the maximal fluorescence enhancement factor, $\mathcal{F}$, which it can generate. However, $\mathcal{F}$ is an ambiguous quantity which may dramatically depend on the intrinsic quantum yield, $q_0$, of the emitter in a free space. Here we suggest $\mathcal{F}={\mathcal{F}}_{q_0=1}$ taken in the limiting case of $q_0=1$ as a proper figure of merit for a plasmonic structure involved in MEF. Any other realistic $\mathcal{F}$ in the MEF regime can be recovered from ${\mathcal{F}}_{q_0=1}$ by a simple $1/q_0$ scaling.

7 pages, 1 figure

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Cited by in corpus (1)

• Large fluorescence enhancement via lossless all-dielectric spherical mesocavities