Excitation volumetric effects (EVE) in metal-enhanced fluorescence.

Metal-Enhanced Fluorescence (MEF) effects from different density silver island films (SiFs) and the effects of far-field excitation irradiance on the observed enhancement of fluorescence were studied. It is shown that MEF non-linearly depends on silver nanoparticle (NP) size/density, reaching a maximum value for SiFs made at a deposition time (DT) of ∼5 minutes, i.e. just before SiFs become continuous. Numerical simulations of the silver-islands growing on glass revealed that the near-field magnitude depends non-linearly on size and interparticle distance exhibiting dramatic enhancement at ∼10 nm distance between the NPs. In addition, a remarkable effect of modulation in MEF efficiency by far-field excitation irradiance has been observed, which can be correlated well with numerical simulations that show an excitation power volume dependence. The near-field volume changes non-linearly with far-field power. This unique observation has profound implications in MEF, which has rapidly emerged as a powerful tool in the biosciences and ultimately allows for tunable fluorescence enhancement factors.