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In situ formation of silvernanostructures produced via laser irradiation within sol–gel derived films and their interaction with a fluorescence tagged protein

Metal enhanced fluorescence is one of the growing areas of research in fluorescence spectroscopy and this paper demonstrates an important advance on the formation of the metal nanoparticles. Here, we demonstrate for the first time that a silver nanoparticle can be formed in-situ in a biocompatible polymer by using a light source to initiate the reduction of a silver salt. Verification of the production of colloidal silver is rigorously proved. The important application to biological sensing is demonstrated by the metal enhanced fluorescence observed for a fluorescence labelled protein molecule.