Add-on plasmonic patch as a universal fluorescence enhancer

Fluorescence-based techniques are the cornerstone of modern biomedical optics, with applications ranging from bioimaging at various scales (organelle to organism) to detection and quantification of a wide variety of biological species of interest. However, the weakness of the fluorescence signal remains a persistent challenge in meeting the ever-increasing demand to image, detect, and quantify biological species with low abundance. Here, we report a simple and universal method based on a flexible and conformal elastomeric film with adsorbed plasmonic nanostructures, which we term a “plasmonic patch,” that provides large (up to 100-fold) and uniform fluorescence enhancement on a variety of surfaces through simple transfer of the plasmonic patch to the surface. We demonstrate the applications of the plasmonic patch in improving the sensitivity and limit of detection (by more than 100 times) of fluorescence-based immunoassays implemented in microtiter plates and in microarray format. The novel fluorescence enhancement approach presented here represents a disease, biomarker, and application agnostic ubiquitously applicable fundamental and enabling technology to immediately improve the sensitivity of existing analytical methodologies in an easy-to-handle and cost-effective manner, without changing the original procedures of the existing techniques.