Aluminum nanostructures produced by aerosol dry printing for ultraviolet photoluminescence enhancement

Aluminum nanoparticles and nanostructures characterized by plasmon resonance in the ultraviolet (UV) range became a subject of intense research. Fluorescence is considered an important phenomenon in catalysis, UV photonics and in clinical medicine, for example, in cell imaging, medical diagnostics and biophysical studies. This work demonstrates metal-enhanced luminescence in the UV region of zinc oxide nanoparticles deposited on films of aluminum
nanoparticles formed by dry aerosol printing on quartz substrates. Two different conditions of metal aluminum nanoparticles (Al NPs) production in spark discharge method were used to obtain aluminum nanoparticles with an average size 9.5 ± 5.6 and 15.5 ± 8.9 nm. At an excitation wavelength of 325 nm, the photoluminescent enhancement factor at 377 nm was about 1.3 for zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) with mean size 26.6 ± 7.4 nm. This study is a  perspective step to confirm the benefits and focus attention on the plasmonic properties of Al nanostructures in UV range.