Enhancement of single particle rare earth doped NaYF 4 : Yb, Er emission with a gold shell

Upconversion of infrared light to visible light has important implications for bioimaging. However, the small absorption cross-section of rare earth dopants has limited the efficiency of these anti-Stokes nanomaterials. We present enhanced excitation absorption and single particle fluorescent emission of sodium yttrium fluoride, NaYF 4 : Yb, Er based upconverting nanoparticles coated with a gold nanoshell through surface plasmon resonance. The single gold-shell coated nanoparticles show enhanced absorption in the near infrared, enhanced total emission intensity, and increased green relative to red emission. We also show differences in enhancement between single and aggregated gold shell nanoparticles. The surface plasmon resonance of the gold-shell coated nanoparticle is shown to be dependent on the shell thickness. In contrast to other reported results, our single particle experimental observations are corroborated by finite element calculations that show where t...

Ling Li, Kory Green, Hans Hallen and Shuang Fang Lim

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