Bloch Surface Waves and Internal Optical Modes Driven Photonic Crystal Coupled Emission Platform for Femtomolar Detection of Aluminum Ions

Intrinsically lossy nature of plasmonic based detection platforms necessitates the use of alternative nanophotonic platforms such as one-dimensional photonic crystals (1DPhCs) to exploit properties pertaining to photonic stop-band (PSB), Bloch surface waves (BSWs), microcavity and band-edge modes. We present a highly desirable confinement of internal optical modes (IOMs) and large surface electromagnetic (EM)-field due to BSWs on a plasmon-free, metal template-free, photonic crystal coupled emission (PCCE) platform ensuing 44 fold emission enhancements of the, otherwise, omnidirectionally emitting radiating dipoles. The effect of dielectric thickness in PCCE platform has also been explored and the optimized thicknesses for enhanced coupling of both BSWs and IOMs with the radiating dipoles have been obtained. Cavity engineering involving the quantum emitters sandwiched in hot-spots between 1DPhC and Ag nanoparticles (AgNPs), have delivered ~200 fold emission enhancements on account of improved local densit...