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Review
. 2020 Sep 3;10(9):1749.
doi: 10.3390/nano10091749.

Recent Developments in Plasmonic Nanostructures for Metal Enhanced Fluorescence-Based Biosensing

Mohsin Ali Badshah  1 , Na Yoon Koh  2 , Abdul Wasy Zia  3 , Naseem Abbas  4 , Zahra Zahra  5 , Muhammad Wajid Saleem  6
Affiliations
Review

Recent Developments in Plasmonic Nanostructures for Metal Enhanced Fluorescence-Based Biosensing

Mohsin Ali Badshah et al. Nanomaterials (Basel). .

Abstract

Metal-enhanced fluorescence (MEF) is a unique phenomenon of surface plasmons, where light interacts with the metallic nanostructures and produces electromagnetic fields to enhance the sensitivity of fluorescence-based detection. In particular, this enhancement in sensing capacity is of importance to many research areas, including medical diagnostics, forensic science, and biotechnology. The article covers the basic mechanism of MEF and recent developments in plasmonic nanostructures fabrication for efficient fluorescence signal enhancement that are critically reviewed. The implications of current fluorescence-based technologies for biosensors are summarized, which are in practice to detect different analytes relevant to food control, medical diagnostics, and forensic science. Furthermore, characteristics of existing fabrication methods have been compared on the basis of their resolution, design flexibility, and throughput. The future projections emphasize exploring the potential of non-conventional materials and hybrid fabrication techniques to further enhance the sensitivity of MEF-based biosensors.

Keywords: biosensors; localized surface plasmon resonance; low-dimensional materials; metal-enhanced fluorescence; metallic nanostructures; nanofabrication; plasmonic nanostructures.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Metal enhanced fluorescence mechanism: (a) the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) effect on metallic structures, (b) the plasmon coupling effect due to non-radiative interactions, modified from [47], (c) the intrinsic radiative decay effect, modified from [47], (d) fluorescence enhancement as a function of the bowtie structures gap size (adapted with permission from [50]), and (e) fluorescence enhancement (emissions, absorption, and total enhancement) as a function of the structure radius (adapted with permission from [53], Copyright 2009, Optical Society of America).
Figure 2
Figure 2
An ordered copper (Cu) nanosphere array along with the MEF enhancement factor (adapted with permission from Reference [13]).
Figure 3
Figure 3
An illustration of the plasmon coupling and MEF enhancement due to end-to-end coupling and the distance effect (adapted with permission from Reference [88]).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Examples of the MEF substrate fabricated by deposition methods: (a) a zigzag nanorods MEF array, and (b) a vertical nanorods MEF array. Adapted with permission from references [22,106].
Figure 5
Figure 5
Examples of MEF substrate fabricated by nanoimprint lithography: (a) a plasmonic nano-lens array, and (b) a disk-coupled dots-on-pillar antenna-array (D2PA) for MEF. Adapted with permission from references [30,122].
Figure 6
Figure 6
A qualitative comparison of characteristics belonging to different methods for fabricating the nanostructures.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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