Nanoplasmonics has significant influence on physical processes in molecular systems. One particular interest is the plasmon-coupled resonance energy transfer (PC-RET). Here, we present a study on such phenomenon using the time-domain electrodynamics resonance energy transfer (TED-RET) method. This method is a real-space real-time computational approach based on classical electrodynamics, utilizing the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method to obtain the electric field generated by the donor molecule in the presence of nanoparticles. For method validation, we show that without the nanoparticles, our numerical results on the RET rate in homogeneous media, such as vacuum and water, are exactly the same as those obtained from the analytic solution of quantum electrodynamics. We then demonstrate that with the advantage of the plasmonic effect from gold nanoparticles, the RET rate between a pair of donor-acceptor molecules can be raised by a factor as high as 10<sup>6</sup> times. Meanwhile, the long-range decay of the RET rates can be significantly reduced, and the spacial "node" in RET rate can be shifted or possibly eliminated. Another interesting observation is the suppression of RET rate in certain regions near the nanoparticles, due to the local destructive interference between the electric field from the molecular donor dipole and the induced field from the nanoparticles. The results suggest promissing future utilization of PC-RET in areas involving light harvesting or sensing, amongst other applications.

Plasmon-coupled resonance energy transfer: A real-space real-time computational electrodynmaics approach

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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