Fractal-like silver structures

A number of promising metal structures for fluorescence signal enhancement have been proposed silver island films (SIFs) that provide about 5-15-fold enhancement [89], fractal-like structures that resulted in stronger enhancements at specific hot spots [90-92], and SIFs deposited on silver or gold films with about 50-fold enhancement [93, 94], Recently, it was found that strong enhancement on a gold film based plasmonic platform may change even the shape of the emission spectrum [95],... 

Shtoyko T, Matveeva EG, Chang IF, Gryczynski Z, Goldys E, Gryczynski I (2008) Enhanced fluorescent immunoassays on silver fractal-like structures. Anal Chem 80 1962-1966... 

In addition to the application of roughened Ag electrodes in SERS measurements, one should add that Geddes et al. [15] have described the use of such Ag electrodes in metal-enhanced fluorescence studies also. The constant current flowing between two silver electrodes in pure water facilitated the growth of fractal-like structures on the cathode. The electrode was coated with a monolayer of human serum albumin protein labeled with Indocyanine Green. It was observed that the fluorescence intensity on the roughened electrode increased approximately the 50-fold, compared to the unroughened electrode. 

Geddes, C.D., et al. (2003) Silver fractal-like structures for metal-enhanced fluorescence Enhanced fluorescence intensities and increased probe photostabilities. J. Fluoresc. 13 267-76. 

Shtoyko, T., et al. (2008) Enhanced Fluorescent Immunoassays on Silver Fractal-like Structures. Anal Chem. 

Figure 41. Silver fractal-like structures grown on silver electrodes.

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