Plasmon Enhancement of Fluorescence in Single Light-Harvesting Complexes from Amphidinium carterae
Ł. Bujak a, D. Piątkowski a, S. Mackowski a, S. Wörmke b, C. Jung b, C. Bräuchle b, A. Agarwal c, N.A. Kotov c, T. Schulte d, E. Hofmann d, T.H.P. Brotosudarmo e, H. Scheer e, A.O. Govorov f and R.G. Hiller g
a Institute of Physics, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Grudziądzka 5, 87-100 Toruń, Poland
b Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Ludwig-Maximilian-University, Butenandtstrasse 11, D-81377 Munich, Germany
c Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, USA
d Department of Biology and Biotechnology, Ruhr-University Bochum, 44780 Bochum, Germany
e Department of Biology I-Botany, Ludwig-Maximilian-University, D-80638 Munich, Germany
f Department of Physics and Astronomy, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio 45701, USA
g Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW 2109, Australia
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We show that single peridinin-chlorophyll α-protein light-harvesting complexes from dinoflagellate Amphidinium carterae placed near to silver nanoparticles show strongly enhanced fluorescence emission. Single molecule spectroscopy experiments performed at room temperature point toward an enhancement of more than an order of magnitude for optimal conditions. Irrespective of the enhancement, we observe no effect of the metal nanoparticle on the fluorescence emission energy of the complex. This result provides a way to control the optical properties of biomolecules via plasmon excitations in metal nanoparticles.
DOI: 10.12693/APhysPolA.116.S-22
PACS numbers: 87.80.Nj, 87.14.E-, 87.64.M-