Plasmon-enhanced erbium luminescence

It is demonstrated that the photoluminescence intensity of optically active erbium ions positioned in close proximity of anisotropic Ag nanoparticles is significantly enhanced if the nanoparticles support plasmon modes that are resonant with the erbium emission. In addition, the photoluminescence intensity enhancement is found to be polarized corresponding to polarization of these plasmon modes. Both observations demonstrate that the photoluminescence enhancement is due to coupling of the Er^{3+ 4}I_13/2-⁴I_15/2 transition dipoles with plasmon modes in the Ag nanoparticles. As this coupling mechanism is known to affect the emission rate, metal nanoparticles provide an opportunity to reduce the effect of temperature or concentration quench processes that are known to occur in a wide range of erbium-doped materials.