Determination of Local Dye Concentration in Hybrid Porous Silica Thin Films

Abstract

The idea of determination of local dye concentration in a nanoporous matrix is proposed based on donor–acceptor energy transfer. The method was tested for a Rhodamine 110–Rhodamine 101 system in silica and methylated silica nanolayers. Evaluation of acceptor (Rhodamine 101) local concentration was carried out by comparing the results of Monte Carlo simulation of energy transfer from donor (Rhodamine 110) to acceptor (Rhodamine 101) with the experimental data of donor fluorescence decay in which concentration was treated as a best fit parameter. The obtained values of acceptor local concentration were about 10 times higher than the mean bulk concentration. Further possible implementations of this method are discussed.