In this study, we demonstrate improved photovoltaic properties in inverted organic thin-film solar cells by simultaneous excitation of grating-coupled surface plasmons and grating-coupled waveguide modes on gold grating surfaces. The cell consists of a glass-ITO substrate/titanium dioxide/poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl):phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester/poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate)/gold structure. The grating structures were fabricated on P3HT:PCBM layers using a nanoimprinting technique with a PDMS stamp. The grating-structured PDMS stamps were fabricated using a DVD-R grating template with a grating pitch, Λ, of 740 nm. Reflectivity measurements made using p-polarized light clearly indicate 2 types of excitation modes, i.e., surface plasmons and waveguide modes, while s-polarized light produces only waveguide modes. Incident photon-to-current efficiency measurements exhibited increased photocurrent wavelengths corresponding to the wavelengths of surface plasmon excitations and waveguide mode excitations. Through the simultaneous excitation of surface plasmons and waveguide modes, short-circuit photocurrents in the grating-structured cells exhibited an improvement of up to 11% in the solar cells, leading to an efficiency increase of 16%.

In this Article, we present a novel method to detect adrenaline on poly(3-aminobenzylamine) (PABA) ultrathin films by electrochemical-surface plasmon resonance (EC-SPR) spectroscopy. We prepared a PABA film, which specifically reacts with adrenaline, on a gold electrode by electropolymerization of 3-aminobenzylamine. The specific reaction of benzylamine within the PABA structure with adrenaline was studied by XPS, UV-vis spectroscopy, and EC-SPR techniques. Adrenaline was detected in real time by EC-SPR spectroscopy, which provides simultaneous monitoring of both optical SPR reflectivity and electrochemical current responses upon injecting adrenaline into the PABA thin film. The number of changes in both current and SPR reflectivity on the injection of adrenaline exhibited the linear relation to the concentration, and the detection limit was 100 pM. The responses were distinctive to those for uric acid and ascorbic acid, which are major interferences of adrenaline.

Surface plasmon (SP) emission light was observed for a merocyanine (MC) Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) film and an MC/crystal violet (CV) hetero-LB film in the ATR Kretschmann configuration. Intense photoluminescence of CV and quenching of MC were observed due to an energy transfer from MC to CV in the hetero-LB film. SP emission light due to CV was also observed for the MC/CV hetero-LB film. Furthermore, the emission light properties of the MC/CV hetero-LB film did not depend on the polarization direction of excitation light and were considered to be a result of the molecular shape of CV.

In this work, we demonstrate multimode surface plasmon (SP) excitations by white light irradiation on metallic diffraction grating/plastic substrates. Recordable compact discs were used as the diffraction grating substrates on which silver films were deposited by vacuum evaporation. Since the grating pitch (1.6 mm) was larger than that of diffraction gratings commonly used for the excitation of SPs, multimode SP excitations due to several diffraction orders were observed simultaneously in the wavelength region from 400 to 800 nm. The obtained SP excitations were then compared with the calculated SP dispersion on the grating. The multimode SP excitations were further studied on spincoated poly[2-methoxy-5-(2 0 -ethyl-hexyloxy)-1,4-phenylene vinylene] (MEH-PPV) thin film/silver grating substrates. An increased photoluminescence intensity due to SP excitations was observed on MEH-PPV/silver grating surfaces.

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