Quantitative Surface Plasmon Interferometry via Upconversion Photoluminescence Mapping
Anxiang Yin,
Hao Jing,
Zhan Wu,
Qiyuan He,
Yiliu Wang,
Zhaoyang Lin,
Yuan Liu,
Mengning Ding,
Xu Xu,
Zhe Fei,
Jianhui Jiang,
Yu Huang,
Xiangfeng Duan
Affiliations
Anxiang Yin
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA; School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100008, China
Hao Jing
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA
Zhan Wu
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA; State Key Laboratory for Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
Qiyuan He
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA
Yiliu Wang
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA
Zhaoyang Lin
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA
Yuan Liu
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA
Mengning Ding
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA
Xu Xu
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA
Zhe Fei
Department of Physics & Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011, USA
Jianhui Jiang
State Key Laboratory for Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China
Yu Huang
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA; California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA
Xiangfeng Duan
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA; California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA
Direct far-field visualization and characterization of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) are of great importance for fundamental studies and technological applications. To probe the evanescently confined plasmon fields, one usually requires advanced near-field techniques, which is typically not applicable for real-time, high-throughput detecting or mapping of SPPs in complicated environments. Here, we report the utilization of rare-earth-doped nanoparticles to quantitatively upconvert invisible, evanescently confined SPPs into visible photoluminescence emissions for direct far-field visualization of SPPs in a complicated environment. The observed interference fringes between the SPPs and the coherent incident light at the metal surface provide a quantitative measurement of the SPP wavelength and the SPP propagating length and the local dielectric environments. It thus creates a new signaling pathway to sensitively transduce the local dielectric environment change into interference periodicity variation, enabling a new design of directly measurable, spectrometer-free optical rulers for rapid, ultrasensitive label-free detection of various biomolecules, including streptavidin and prostate-specific antigen, down to the femtomolar level.
