Surface-confined light harvesting, energy transfer, and amplification of fluorescence emission in chromophore-labeled self-assembled monolayers

Mixtures of derivatives of coumarin-2 and coumarin-343 can self-assemble on silicon wafers to form monolayers in which light harvesting and energy transfer take place (see picture). Photophysical properties, such as donor quenching and fluorescence amplification, were tuned by varying the molar ratio of the donor and acceptor chromophores on the surface or by increasing the number of coumarin-2 chromophores on the donor adsorbate through the use of a dendritic linker.