Singlet Oxygen Phosphorescence Enhancement by Silver Islands Films

XAVIER RAGÀS; ADAYA GALLARDO ; YONGXIA ZHANG ; WALTER MASSAD; CHRIS D. GEDDES; SANTI NONELL

JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY C

AMER CHEMICAL SOC

Lugar: Washington; Año: 2011 vol. 115 p. 16275 - 16281

1932-7447

Optical detection of singlet oxygen, a reactive oxygen species that plays a crucial role in a variety of biomedical processes, is hampered by its extremely low emission probability. Using plasmonic effects induced in silver islands films coated with C60, we have been able to enhance the near-IR phosphorescence of singlet oxygen by a factor of ca. 35. Both an enhanced production of singlet oxygen via plasmon-induced light absorption and the perturbation of its radiative rate constant are shown to account for this effect. The dependence of the enhancement factor on the properties of the silver island films and on the amount of C60 coated are discussed.