Silver-copper alloy nanoparticles for metal enhanced luminescence

Large metal enhanced luminescence was realized at the vicinity of easily fabricated Ag-Cu alloy nanoparticles upon tuning of their surface plasmon resonance spectra by changing only one experimental variable-the annealing temperature, for maximum spectral overlap with the emission and excitation spectra of the luminophores. We observed strong emission enhancement of luminophores (141.48 +/- 19.20 times for Alexa Fluor 488 and 23.91 +/- 12.37 times for Alexa Fluor 594) at the vicinity of these Ag-Cu nanoparticles, which is significantly larger than for pure Ag nanoparticles. We present theoretical calculations to provide insights into these experimental findings. c 2009 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3242007]