title: Electric Switching of Fluorescence Decay in Gold-Silica-Dye Nematic Nanocolloids Mediated by Surface Plasmons.
abstract: Tunable composite materials with interesting physical behavior can be designed through integrating unique optical properties of solid nanostructures with facile responses of soft matter to weak external stimuli, but this approach remains challenged by their poorly controlled coassembly at the mesoscale. Using scalable wet chemical synthesis procedures, we fabricated anisotropic gold-silica-dye colloidal nanostructures and then organized them into the device-scale (demonstrated for square-inch cells) electrically tunable composites by simultaneously invoking molecular and colloidal self-assembly. We show that the ensuing ordered colloidal dispersions of shape-anisotropic nanostructures exhibit tunable fluorescence decay rates and intensity. We characterize how these properties depend on low-voltage fields and polarization of both the excitation and emission light, demonstrating a great potential for the practical realization of an interesting breed of nanostructured composite materials.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Soft Materials Research Center, University of Colorado , Boulder, Colorado 80309, United States.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Soft Materials Research Center, University of Colorado , Boulder, Colorado 80309, United States.
authors.forename: Haridas
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Mundoor
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Soft Materials Research Center, University of Colorado , Boulder, Colorado 80309, United States.
authors.forename: Qingkun
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Soft Materials Research Center, University of Colorado , Boulder, Colorado 80309, United States.|Department of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering Program, University of Colorado , Boulder, Colorado 80309, United States.|Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute, National Renewable Energy Laboratory and University of Colorado , Boulder, Colorado 80309, United States.
authors.forename: Ivan I
authors.initials: II
authors.lastname: Smalyukh
keywords: fluorescence lifetime; plasmonic nanostructures; self-assembly; switching