ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we will present the general concepts of surface-enhanced fluorescence (SEF) before discussing in detail the effect of a simple continuous metallic thin film to improve detection and imaging at the interface. The understanding of the interplay between fluorophores, propagating photons, and the surface plasmon (SP) in most basic geometry captures the essence of SEF. We show that this configuration provides significant improvements when applied to bioimaging.
This chapter is divided into further three sections. The first section introduces the principles of SEF and the second to SP coupling and its combined effect on fluorophores. The third section is devoted to analyzing the various cases of fluorescence enhancement near metallic surface for imaging applications.
