The effect of localized electric fields on the photocurrent responses of
phthalocyanine that was self-assembled on a
gold nanoparticle film was investigated by comparing the conventional and the total internal reflection (TIR) experimental systems. In the case of photocurrent measurements, self-assembled monolayers (
SAMs) of a
thiol derivative of
palladium phthalocyanine (
PdPc) were prepared on the surface of
gold-nanoparticle film that was fixed on the surface of
indium-tin-oxide (ITO) substrate via a polyion (
PdPc/AuP/polyion/ITO) or on the ITO surface (
PdPc/ITO). Photocurrent action spectra from the two samples were compared by using the conventional spectrometer, and were found that
PdPc/AuP/polyion/ITO gave considerably larger photocurrent signals than
PdPc/ITO under the identical concentration of
PdPc. In the case of the TIR experiments for the
PdPc/AuP/polyion/ITO and the
PdPc/AuP/Glass systems, incident-angle profiles of photocurrent and emission signals were correlated with each other, and they were different from that of the
PdPc/ITO system. Accordingly, it was demonstrated that the photocurrent signals were certainly enhanced by the localized electric fields of the
gold-nanoparticle film.