Plasmon assisted fluorescence emission: far-field observables and their fluctuations

Fluorescence describes the property of matter to absorb light and shortly after emit light of another color. Fluorescent materials are found in nature, e.g. in the jelly-fish Aequorea victoria, in some plants and mushrooms, and in minerals such as Fluorite in which this property was first scientifically described. For electric lighting in our homes and streets fluorescent materials are a key ingredient in every compact fluorescent lamp and white light LED. In the life sciences, fluorescent molecules have become indispensable to selectively mark functional parts of living cells or tissues, and fluorescence microscopy is of paramount importance for today’s biological imaging.
This thesis is divided into three parts and targets the question of how different fluorescence applications can benefit from metal nano-antennas. The first part addresses the scenario of a plasmon-antenna enhanced fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) experiment. The second part of the thesis describes how the position of a single molecule relative to a nano-antenna translates into far-field properties of the fluorescence emission, such as polarization, fluorescence lifetime or radiation pattern.
Part three discusses two experiments which address the question of how to shape the angular distribution of the fluorescence emission of an incoherent ensemble of dye molecules.