Donor-acceptor nonradiative energy transfer mediated by surface plasmons on ultrathin metallic films

Abstract Selected properties of donor–acceptor energy transfer in the presence of surface plasmon coupled emission (SPCE) on metallic nanofilms are demonstrated. These properties of surface plasmon mediated energy transfer (SPMET) are for the first time compared to those of traditional energy transfer (ET) based on the same donor–acceptor system. The presence of plasmons significantly accelerates energy transfer as revealed by the results of fluorescence intensity decay. In particular, the rise time of acceptor fluorescence intensity upon donor excitation is 10 times shorter in the presence of SPCE. It is also observed that contrary to ET the sensibilized acceptor emission in SPMET is totally linearly polarized.