Hybrid Metal-Dielectric Nano-Aperture Antenna for Surface Enhanced Fluorescence

Abstract

A hybrid metal-dielectric nano-aperture antenna is proposed for surface-enhanced fluorescence applications. The nano-apertures that formed in the composite thin film consist of silicon and gold layers. These were numerically investigated in detail. The hybrid nano-aperture shows a more uniform field distribution within the apertures and a higher antenna quantum yield than pure gold nano-apertures. The spectral features of the hybrid nano-apertures are independent of the aperture size. This shows a high enhancement effect in the near-infrared region. The nano-apertures with a dielectric gap were then demonstrated theoretically for larger enhancement effects. The hybrid nano-aperture is fully adaptable to large-scale availability and reproducible fabrication. The hybrid antenna will improve the effectiveness of surface-enhanced fluorescence for applications, including sensitive biosensing and fluorescence analysis.

Hybrid Au/Si Disk-Shaped Nanoresonators on Gold Film for Amplified SERS Chemical Sensing

“…Moreover, these hybrid Au/Si disk-shaped nanoresonators on the gold film have been tested as chemical sensors by using solutions of thiophenol, which are small chemical molecules (thickness of a thiophenol monolayer is around 0.6 nm [47]). Besides, this additional layer of silicon has already allowed the improvement of the fluorescence signal enhanced by the surface for biosensing applications and enhanced single-molecule detection [48,49].…”

A hybrid metal–dielectric zero mode waveguide for enhanced single molecule detection

“…We observed that the hybrid metal-dielectric nanoslot outperform the gold nanoslot in the near-infrared. As put forward by Lu et al 28 , we mainly attributed these differences to the fact that Si absorbs less than Au in the near-infrared, and consequently there is less quenching. Last but not least, we showed that the intensity enhancement produced by these types of structures heavily depends on the incoming beam used to produce it.…”

“…Next, we set out to experimentally test the fabricated nanoantennas for three different wavelengths. The aim of these measurements is i) to demonstrate that the hybrid metaldielectric ZMWs proposed by G. Lu et al 28 are a good choice of ZMW for the near-infrared, and ii) to see how its behavior changes for visible wavelengths. For that, we used the same optical set-up used in some of our previous works 27,29 .…”

Dielectric Microsphere Coupled to a Plasmonic Nanowire: A Self‐Assembled Hybrid Optical Antenna

“…In recent times, such couplings have been experimentally realized on various systems such as metal‐integrated semiconductor nanowires, [ 1 ] metal‐coated dielectric structures, [ 2 ] microsphere coupled with metallic particles, [ 3 ] dielectric nanospheres placed near metallic film. [ 4,5 ] These hybrid structures have been utilized, to design single photon devices, [ 6–8 ] optical antenna, [ 9,10 ] to tune the photoluminescence dynamics of emitters [ 11,12 ] and for enhanced spontaneous emission from emitters [ 13–15 ] down to the level of single molecule with minimized ohmic losses. [ 16,17 ]…”