Surface-enhanced fluorescence from fluorophore-assembled monolayers by using Ag@SiO2 nanoparticles.

A new and simple procedure to enhance the fluorescence of analytes on the surfaces of a solid substrate is demonstrated based on Ag@SiO(2) nanoparticles. Two kinds of silver-silica core-shell nanoparticles with shell thicknesses of around 3 and 15 nm have been prepared and used as enhancing agents, respectively. By simply pipetting drops of the enhancing agents onto substrate surfaces with Rose Bengal monolayers, an enhancement of about 27 times, compared with the control sample, is achieved by using the Ag@SiO(2) nanoparticles with shells of about 3 nm, whereas an enhancement of around 11.7 times is obtained when using those with thicker shells. The effects of shell thickness and surface density of the enhancing agents on the enhancement have been investigated experimentally. The results show that this method can be potentially helpful in fluorescence-based surface analysis.