Is there a proper figure of merit for a plasmonic structure involved in metal-enhanced fluorescence?

Abstract

A suitability of a nanostructure for a metal-enhanced fluorescence (MEF) is usually assessed from the value of the maximal fluorescence enhancement factor, $\mathcal{F}$, which it can generate. However, $\mathcal{F}$ is an ambiguous quantity which may dramatically depend on the intrinsic quantum yield, $q_0$, of the emitter in a free space. Here we suggest $\mathcal{F}=\mathcal{F}_{q_0=1}$ taken in the limiting case of $q_0=1$ as a proper figure of merit for a plasmonic structure involved in MEF. Any other realistic $\mathcal{F}$ in the MEF regime can be recovered from $\mathcal{F}_{q_0=1}$ by a simple $1/q_0$ scaling.