f3-sensors-08-00886: ESEM images of the silver structures (a) magnification × 7000, bar represents 5 um (b) magnification × 60000, bar represents 500 nm [7]. Reprint with permission from [7]. Copyright (2007) American Chemical Society.

Mentions: These structures were first examined in a laser scanning microscope and also in transmission as shown in Figure 1a and 1b. These two images were found to be highly correlated (Figure 2), with brighter regions in close correspondence to the thicker regions. A higher magnification SEM image shown in Figure 3 revealed that the structures had loose nanowire architecture with an arrangement of silver nanowires several micrometers in length and similar radius of approximately 50-100 nm in diameter. In such structures the surface area is proportional to thickness of the deposit and thus a possible reason for high fluorescence signals could be simple structure geometry and not fluorescence amplification.