Controlling the Fluorescence Resonant Energy Transfer by Photonic Crystal Band Gap Engineering

Abstract

The fluorescence of dye molecules embedded in a photonic crystal is known to be inhibited by the presence of a pseudo-gap acting in their emission range. Here we present the first account of the influence that an incomplete photonic band gap or pseudo-gap has on the fluorescence emission and fluorescence resonant energy transfer. By inserting synthetic, donor (D)-acceptor (A)-labeled oligonucleotide structures in self-organized colloidal photonic crystals, we were able to measure simultaneously the emission spectra and lifetimes of both donor and acceptor. Our results clearly show an inhibition of the donor emission together with an enhancement of the acceptor emission spectra, indicating improved energy transfer from donor to acceptor. These results are mainly attributed to a decrease of the number of available photonic modes for radiative decay of the donor in a photonic crystal in comparison to that of the effective homogeneous medium. The fluorescence decay parameters are also dominated by the pseudo-gap acting on the energy-transfer efficiency.

Angular Dependence of Fluorescence Emission from Quantum Dots inside a Photonic Crystal

“…Accordingly only a decrease of fluorescence emission in PC2 as compared to PC1 was observed [13,14]. This suppression of emission was expected due to the decrease of the number of available photonic states in the pseudogap for PC2 [14][15][16]. Figure 3(a) shows the pseudogap which can be seen in the reduced fluorescence spectra for different incidence angles.…”

Lifetime of fluorescent dye molecules in dense aqueous suspensions of polystyrene nanoparticles

“…Moreover, by an appropriate design of the microenvironment, it will be possible to tune photon states in order to enhance or filter photonic signals. Tailoring the local density of states can for example be used to shape the absorption and emission spectrum of a fluorophore or to enhance fluorescence resonant energy transfer (FRET) by photonic band gap engineering as shown in [5,6] . Understanding the fluorescent decay in a complex and well controlled dielectric environment is therefore of great importance.…”

3D photonic crystals from highly monodisperse FRET-based red luminescent PMMA spheres

“…Recently, a few examples exploring self-assembled PhC to modify FRET have been presented using the artificial opal as a passive scaffold. [18,19,20] This has been done impregnating the opaline matrix with well controlled donor-acceptor configurations [18] or with a random suspension of two dyes, [19] and also employing an inverse opal configuration with a rare-earth based matrix. [20] Further, the combined use of artificial opals and FRET has been demonstrated as a means to develop DNA sensors [21] or systems for optical storage.…”