Biomedical applications of radiative decay engineering

Fluorescence spectroscopy is a widely used research tool in biochemistry and has also become the dominant method enabling the revolution in medical diagnostics, DNA sequencing and genomics. In this forward-looking article we describe a new opportunity in fluorescence, radiative decay engineering (RDE). By RDE we mean modifying the emission of fluorophores or chromophores by a nearby metallic surface, the most important effect being an increase in the radiative decay rate. We describe the usual effects expected from increases in the radiative rates with reference to the biomedical applications of immunoassays and DNA hybridization. We also present experiments which show that metallic particles can increase the quantum yield of low quantum yield fluorophores, increase fluorophore photostability and increase the distance for resonance energy transfer. And finally we show that proximity to silver particles can increase the intensity of the intrinsic fluorescence from DNA.