Measurement of Fluorescence in a Rhodamine-123 Doped Self-Assembled “Giant” Mesostructured Silica Sphere Using a Smartphone as Optical Hardware

Abstract

The blue OLED emission from a mobile phone was characterised, revealing a sharp emission band centred at λ = 445 nm with a 3dB bandwidth Δλ ~ 20 nm. It was used to excite Rhodamine 123 doped within a “giant” mesostructured silica sphere during fabrication through evaporative self-assembly of silica nanoparticles. Fluorescence was able to be detected using a standard optical microscope fitted with a green transmission pass filter and cooled CCD and with 1 ms exposure time demonstrating the potential of mobile platforms as the basis for portable diagnostics in the field.

Keywords

• biological sensing and sensors
• optical diagnostics for medicine
• fluorescence
• optoelectronics
• light-emitting diodes
• fluorescence microscopy
• nanomaterials
• silica
• optical instruments
• smartphones
• mobile platforms