Periodic nanostructure arrays forming electric dipoles or quadrupoles were fabricated with a Focused Gallium Ion Beam on a gold thin film deposited onto an Er 3+-doped tellurite glass. The nanostructures were vertically illuminated with an Argon Ion laser (488 nm). The Er 3+ luminescence spectrum was then measured in the far-field. The observed luminescence is elucidated considering the following effects: (i) excitation of the Er 3+ ions by means of the localized surface plasmon resonance from the electric dipole/quadrupole nanostructures, that produce an improvement of the local field, resulting in an enhanced luminescence, and (ii) the Er 3+ luminescence spectrum depends on the albedo of the system (electric dipole/quadrupole arrays), for which its resonant properties is strongly affected. In this way, the emission of the Er 3+ is achieved through the metallic nanostructures. Additional contributions for the observed emission spectrum regarding the influence of physical and geometrical parameters, period of the electric multipole and lattice symmetry have been investigated. The variation of these parameters resulted in a significantly improvement of luminescence spectra. © 2012 Copyright Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).