Plasmonic Nanocavity Metasurface Based on Laser-Structured Silver Surface and Silver Nanoprisms for the Enhancement of Adenosine Nucleotide Photoluminescence

A reliable photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy and imaging of biomolecules at room temperature is a challenging and important problem of biophysics, biochemistry, and molecular genetics. A unique effect of strong plasmonic enhancement of the PL by metal nanostructures is one of the most effective approaches for this purpose. The highest enhancement is provided by metal nanostructures with densely packed sharp tips, periodically arranged metal nanostructures, and plasmonic cavities. All of these features have been realized in the plasmonic cavity metasurface based on the silver (Ag) laser-induced periodic surface structure and Ag triangular nanoprisms studied in the present work. The strong plasmon-enhanced PL of 5′-deoxyadenosine monophosphate deposited on such metasurfaces has been revealed at room temperature. The observed enhancement of more than 1000-fold has been interpreted as a result of synergetic action of the generation of a high concentration of hot spots near the sharp edges of the laser-induced surface structure and nanoprisms together with excitation of the collective gap mode of the cavity due to strong near-field plasmonic coupling. Correspondingly, the plasmonic cavity metasurfaces consisting of metal laser-induced periodic surface structures and nonspherical metal nanoparticles with sharp edges have been shown to be crucial for the highly sensitive detection and imaging of biomolecules at room temperature without consuming any dye labels.