Metal Enhanced Luminescence of Pressure Sensitive Paints

Abstract

Metal-Enhanced Luminescence (MEL) is the process through which the interactions of luminescence with surface plasmon resonance (SPR) of metallic nanoparticles results in increased luminescent intensity. Silica-coated silver nanoparticles (Ag@SiO2), were used to increase the emission intensity of PtTFPP embedded in a sol-gel matrix, which increased the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) compared with conventional PSP during low-speed testing by a factor of two. Experimental methods and software were developed to process both luminescent and pressure data from a calibration facility as well as image data obtained from wind tunnel testing. Wind tunnel testing consisted of imaging flow over flat plate and NACA 0012 coated models to determine surface pressure distributions. Results demonstrated significantly reduced pressure uncertainties for models coated with the sol-gel-based MEL-PSP compared to the sol-gel-based conventional PSP. Additionally, expected pressure trends were readily visible in processed data.