Abstract
Colloidal quantum dots display a wide range of novel optical properties that could prove useful for many applications in photonics. Here, we report the enhancement of fluorescence emission from colloidal quantum dots on the surface of two-dimensional photonic crystal slabs. The enhancement is due to a combination of high-intensity near fields and strong coherent scattering effects, which we attribute to leaky eigenmodes of the photonic crystal. By fabricating two-dimensional photonic crystal slabs that operate at visible wavelengths and engineering their leaky modes so that they overlap with the absorption and emission wavelengths of the quantum dots, we demonstrate that the fluorescence intensity can be enhanced by a factor of up to 108 compared with quantum dots on an unpatterned surface.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the University of Illinois College of ACES Experimental Station, SRU Biosystems, the Soybean Disease Biotechnology Center and the National Science Foundation (BES 0427657). Part of this work was carried out in the Center for Microanalysis of Materials, University of Illinois, which is partially supported by the US Department of Energy under grant DEFG02-91-ER45439. The authors would like to thank the staff of the Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory and colleagues from the Nano Sensors Group for their suggestions and input.
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Brian Cunningham is an officer and director of SRU Biosystems.
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Ganesh, N., Zhang, W., Mathias, P. et al. Enhanced fluorescence emission from quantum dots on a photonic crystal surface. Nature Nanotech 2, 515–520 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2007.216
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2007.216
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