Figure 1

(a) Schematic of experimental setup. The fluorescent source is attached to a scanning probe and positioned with respect to the structure of interest. A pulsed pump laser is focused onto the source whose fluorescence is collected by the same microscope objective. The fluorescence is split off by a dichroic beam splitter and a color filter and focused onto an APD. (b) Schematic of nanowire with light source in its vicinity. The light source can decay radiatively, nonradiatively, and into surface plasmons. Plasmons may decay via absorption in the wire or radiation from wire end. (c) SEM micrograph of a Au nanowire.Reuse & Permissions

Figure 2

(a) Fluorescence intensity map of fluorescing probe scanned across unpatterned cover glass. The bright region corresponds to where the probe passes the laser focus. The signal to background ratio exceeds ${10}^3$ at a pump power of $0.2\mathrm{<ruby><rb>\mu </rb><rt>みゅー</rt></ruby>}\mathrm{W}$. (b) Decay trace of photon events from probe positions within box in (a), revealing a single exponential decay with 6.4 ns time constant (straight line through data).Reuse & Permissions

Figure 3

(a) Lifetime map of source scanned with respect to Au nanowire. Close to the wire, the lifetime is reduced to half its original value. (b) Black squares: Cross section through first row in (a). Gray error bars indicate $3\mathrm{<ruby><rb>\sigma </rb><rt>しぐま</rt></ruby>}$ confidence interval obtained from the covariance matrix of the fit. Red circles: Lifetime values obtained from averaging all horizontal scan lines in (a) with $3\mathrm{<ruby><rb>\sigma </rb><rt>しぐま</rt></ruby>}$ error bars. Blue solid curve: Intensity of the fundamental wire mode (250 nm diameter) along the probe trace (55 nm from wire surface) as indicated in the inset [22]. (c) Fluorescence intensity map obtained during measurement that yielded (a) showing a change in apparent brightness of the source in the vicinity of the wire.Reuse & Permissions

Figure 4

(a) Ag wire with attached bead in white light illumination imaged on a CCD camera. (b) Fluorescence image of structure in (a) under wide-field illumination by pump laser. Light emerges from the bead and from wire ends. (c) Black points: Cross section along wire obtained by binning the central 10 columns in (b). Upper curve (red): Fit to data with three peaks (green solid curves under envelope). (d) Decay traces of light source on probe away (blue squares) and after deposition on Ag nanowire (green diamonds). Red lines are biexponential fits.Reuse & Permissions