title: Low temperature metal-enhanced fluorescence.
abstract: In this short letter, we describe the effects of low temperature on the Metal-Enhanced Fluorescence (MEF) phenomenon. Fluorophores close to Silver Island Films (SiFs) show on average two- to ten-fold enhancements in their fluorescence signatures at room temperature. However, at 77 K, we have observed that MEF is even more pronounced as compared to an identical glass control sample. We also demonstrate that the further enhancements in MEF occur at low temperature over a range of visible wavelengths for different fluorophores, for both SiFs and 20 nm surface deposited gold colloids.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Fluorescence, Laboratory for Advanced Medical Plasmonics and Laboratory for Advanced Fluorescence Spectroscopy, Medical Biotechnology Center, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute, 725 West Lombard Street, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA.
authors.forename: Yongxia
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Kadir
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Aslan
authors.forename: Michael J R
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Previte
authors.forename: Chris D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Geddes