Plasmonic enhancement of Förster energy transfer between two molecules in the vicinity of a metallic nanoparticle: Nonlocal optical effects

Abstract

The problem of Förster resonance energy transfer ͑FRET͒ between two molecules in the vicinity of a metallic nanoparticle such as a nanoshell is studied within a phenomenological model which takes into account the nonlocal optical response of the metal. This model allows for arbitrary locations and orientations of the two molecular dipoles with respect to the metal particle which can be of ultrasmall sizes ͑Ͻ10 nm͒ and for which nonlocal effects are of high significance. In particular, for the nanoshell case, the molecules can be located both outside, both inside, or one inside and one outside the shell. Also, the case with a metallic spherical particle studied mostly in the literature can be obtained in the limit of zero inner radius for the nanoshell. Particular focus will be on the enhancement of this FRET process due mainly to the surface plasmon excitation of the free metallic electrons, and the nonlocal effects on this will be studied with reference to a number of factors including the molecular locations and orientations, the transition frequency of the donor and acceptor;…etc. Numerical results show that the resonances in the enhanced FRET rate will be dominated by the multipolar bonding and antibonding cross-coupled plasmonic modes of the nanoshell; and that the nonlocal effects will generally lead to blueshifted resonances, as well as diminution of the enhancement for the low-frequency portions of both modes. Such information will be useful for future application of plasmonic enhanced FRET using metallic particles of ultrasmall sizes.

A theoretical investigation of the influence of gold nanosphere size on the decay and energy transfer rates and efficiencies of quantum emitters

“…There have been numerous experimental [67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77] and theoretical [78][79][80][81][82][83] studies of the ET process in donor-acceptor pairs. The studies reported increases in the ET rate, range, and efficiency for various NP materials, sizes, and geometries.…”

“…The donor-acceptor energy transfer process in the presence of metallic NP has been investigated experimentally [67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77] and theoretically [78][79][80][81][82][83] with increases in the energy transfer rate, range, and efficiency reported for various NP materials, sizes, and geometries. The experimental studies of plasmon mediated energy transfer using nanospheres have included donor-acceptor molecules in proximity to 20 nm diameter Ag nanospheres 67,68 and 40 nm Au nanospheres 69 with 21-fold and 3.2-fold increases in the FRET rate, respectively.…”

Nonlocal Effects on Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering From Bimetallic Coated Nanoparticles

“…In addition, the scattering cross section [20,21], polarizability [22], and SERS [23] from nonlocal metal nanoparticles were widely investigated. Later, effects of spatial nonlocality on optical and molecular interactions with metallic nanoshells [24], on plasmonic enhancement of Förster energy transfer between two molecules in the vicinity of metallic nanoparticles [25], on the optical response of a multilayered spherical system [26] were investigated.…”

Energy Transfer in Peridinin-Chlorophyll-Protein-Metallic Nanoparticle Hybrid Nanostructure: Effect of Spatial Arrangement

“…we implement an electrostatic analytical solution to the problem of electrostatic scattering of an electric dipolar eld [25]. 4.…”