Highly luminescent ultra-thin films with rare earth for plasmonic applications

Amphiphilic complexes with luminescent rare earth metal ions suitable for Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) deposi-tion have been synthetized. LB monolayers with closely packed Eu complexes deposited directly on silver demonstrate significant far-field emission in contrast to the theoretical predictions of full quenching. Angu-lar radiation and polarization patterns of the electric and magnetic dipole emission of Eu3+ point to a high excitation efficiency of surface plasmon polaritons. Different luminescent behavior of closely packed emit-ters in comparison to diluted systems is tentatively attributed to the collective state of emitters in LB layers formed via near-field coupling with surface plasmons.