Separating photoluminescence of porous Si in porous colloidal Si and chlorophyll dispersion

Abstract

We observed the luminescence of a chlorophyll and porous Si dispersion using the wavelength-selected excitation and time-gated photoluminescence methods to eliminate the autofluorescence of chlorophyll. Although the photoluminescence (PL) of chlorophyll was dominant when the chlorophyll and porous Si dispersion was excited using the 405 nm line, the autofluorescence of chlorophyll drastically decreased when the dispersion was excited using the 355 nm line. During the time-gated photoluminescence experiments, the autofluorescence of chlorophyll disappeared and the broadband PL that corresponded to porous Si was clearly observed. Thus, porous Si could be a very useful luminescent probe for plant imaging when using the wavelength-selected excitation and time-gated photoluminescence methods.