We demonstrate the influence of electrical current on the ability of surface plasmons to amplify fluorescence signatures.
An applied direct current across Silver Island Films (SIFs) of low electrical resistance perturbs the fluorescence enhancement.
For a given applied current, surface plasmons in just-continuous films are sparsely available for fluorophore dipole-coupling
and hence the enhanced fluorescence is gated as a function of the applied current. For thicker, low resistance films, sufficient
charge carriers are now present in the metal that metal-enhanced fluorescence (MEF) is perturbed to a lesser extent, induced
surface plasmons readily formed on the surface by the close-proximity dipole.
Keywords Metal-enhanced fluorescence - Radiative decay engineering - Plasmon controlled fluorescence - Voltage gated metal-enhanced fluorescence