Optimization of metal-enhanced fluorescence by different concentrations of gold-silica core–shell nanoparticles

Colloidal solutions of Au/SiO2 core–shell nanoparticles (NPs) are synthesized. The diameters of Au core are 40 nm, 60 nm, 80 nm and 110 nm and the thickness of SiO2 shell is 20 nm. The metal-enhanced fluorescence of CdTe quantum dots (QDs) in aqueous solutions is studied by mixing the Au/SiO2 NPs colloidal solutions with different concentrations. As the molar ratio of the Au/SiO2 NPs and the CdTe QDs increases, the fluorescence enhancement factor grows rapidly because of the plasmonic enhancement, and then a reduction of the enhancement factor is observed because of the absorption of Au/SiO2 NPs. The largest fluorescence enhancement factor of 8 is obtained at the optimal molar ratio, when the surface plasmon resonance of the Au/SiO2 NPs (60 nm) matches the emission peak of the CdTe QDs. The results of our theoretical analysis support the experimental results.