Fluorescence characteristics of a molecule in the vicinity of a plasmonic nanomatryoska: Nonlocal optical effects

The fluorescence characteristics of a dipole molecule in the vicinity of a spherical multilayered metallic nanoshell (a plasmonic nanomatryoska) of ultra-small dimensions is studied via electrodynamic modeling, where we have computed the fluorescence decay rates, the shifts in emission frequency, and the overall fluorescence yields for molecular dipoles of both tangential and radial orientations. Our focus is on structures of ultra small dimensions in order to elucidate the possibly novel nonlocal optical effects in such a phenomenon. The results show that at very close distances between the molecule and the nanoshell, the nonlocal effects in general lead to smaller structure-induced effects with broadened and blue-shifted plasmonic resonances. These effects include overall smaller induced decay rates, smaller red-shifts in emission frequency, and somewhat larger fluorescence yields at low emission frequencies. Physical interpretation of our simulation results is provided. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.