Luminescent blinking from silver, gold and copper nanostructures: A new class of probes for imaging and localization

摘要

We have recently observed both one and multicolor luminescent blinking from a variety of noble-metal nanostructures upon laser-light illumination. Our results suggest a new class of metallic probes, based on intrinsic metal luminescence, with several advantages over conventional organic fluorophores, such as enhanced photostability, higher luminescence intensity, tunable emission wavelengths and the possibilities for a variety of functional surface chemistries. Our findings for silver, gold and copper nanostructures have revealed some notable and attractive differences in their individual luminescence properties.