Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and University of Maryland Baltimore County have shown that mixed metal substrates made from aluminium and silver nanodeposits can enhance luminescence.
This enables enhanced luminescence from UV protein residues, solvents and traditional visible fluorophores. The wavelength enhancement range is much broader than silver alone and other metal enhanced fluorescence (MEF) substrates reported thus far. These results indicate that mixed metal surfaces are a better choice for MEF applications than the customary single metal surfaces. Films made in such a way could prove to be very useful for various biomedical assays that utilise fluorescence.
Interested to know more? Why not read the full article for free: K. Golberg, A. Elbaz, Y. Zhang, A. I. Dragan, R. Marks and C. D. Geddes, J. Mater. Chem., 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C0JM04311G (Advance Article)
