Seedless synthesis of gold nanorods by using hydrogen peroxide as a weak reducing agent

Abstract

A new seedless wet chemistry synthesis of gold nanorods by using hydrogen peroxide as the weak reducing agent is reported. A reduced concentration of hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide is used in our experiment, and the synthesized gold nanorods exhibit tunable longitudinal surface plasmon resonance peaks ranging from 725 to 945?nm. The influence on gold nanorods growth by adjusting the amounts of sodium hydroxide, silver nitrate, sodium borohydride, and hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide were investigated by the visible-near infrared spectroscopy. Under the proper experimental parameters, the longitudinal surface plasmon resonance peaks can be tuned by varying the hydrogen peroxide amounts. Furthermore, it can be seen that the redshift of the longitudinal absorption peak of the prepared gold nanorods with increasing hydrogen peroxide amount is consistent with the increase tendency of the length-to-width aspect ratio obtained from the transmission electron microscopy images. The method provides a facile pathway to prepare gold nanorods with tunable longitudinal surface plasmon resonance peaks, which have potential applications in biomedicine and nanophotonics.     

Rotational dynamics of gold nanoparticle chains in water solution

In this study, the optical properties of two nano-sized polymer colloids in optical coherence tomography (OCT) were compared in vitro with respect to their potential use as contrast agents. We used two types of particles: compact hydrophobic spherical polystyrene (PS) particles and soft water-swollen nanogel (NG) particles both with grafted hydrophilic shell, both prepared at two different sizes (PS at 300 and 150?nm, NG at 300 and 200?nm). The OCT backscattering signals of the particles in a vessel-mimicking highly scattering agar/TiO₂ phantom were compared on either number of particles or weight percent. Larger particles and higher concentrations produced higher OCT contrast. At each concentration tested, a markedly higher contrast was achieved by PS particles than NG particles. PS particles generated a markedly higher OCT contrast than the phantom at concentrations of at least 1?×?10¹⁰ or 0.1?% for PS 300?nm and at least 3?×?10¹¹ particles/mL or 0.4?% for PS 150?nm. The contrast generated by NG 300?nm was above the phantom contrast at concentrations of at least 3?×?10¹¹ particles/mL or 1?%, whereas NG 200?nm only at 4?%. At any given weight percent, the differences in OCT contrast between differently sized particles were much less evident than in the comparison based on particle number. PS 300?nm generated also a good contrast ex vivo on chicken muscle tissue. These results strongly suggest that PS spheres have strong potential as intravascular OCT contrast agent, while NG particles need further contrast enhancer for being used as OCT contrast agent.     

Gold nanocages as contrast agents for spectroscopic optical coherence tomography

We describe gold nanocages as a new class of potential contrast agent for spectroscopic optical coherence tomography (OCT). Monodispersed gold nanocages of an approximately 35 nm edge length exhibit strong optical resonance, with the peak wavelength tunable in the near-infrared range. We characterized the optical properties of the nanocage by using OCT experiments along with numerical calculations, revealing an absorption cross section approximately 5 orders of magnitude larger than conventional dyes. Experiments with tissue phantoms demonstrated that the nanocages provide enhanced contrast for spectroscopic as well as conventional intensity-based OCT imaging.     

Effect of Aspect Ratio Distribution on Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance Extinction Spectrum of Gold Nanorods

Gold nanorods with different aspect ratios are prepared in micells using a seeded growth method. Their extinction spectra are observed with an UV-visible spectrophotometer and analysed theoretically. It is known that there are two plasmon resonance peaks for gold nanorod corresponding to transverse and longitudinal plasmon resonance respectively. Moreover, the longitudinal plasmon resonance peak shifts to long wavelength when we increase the aspect ratio determined from TEM. Especially, we model the extinction spectrum using Gans' theory and compare it with our experimental result. Considering the aspect radios distribution of gold nanorods, it is found that longitudinal plasmon resonance peak will be wider than the nanorods with single aspect ratio, which is consistent with our experimental result. In addition, the effect of dielectric constant of surrounding medium is considered.     

金纳米棒状微粒的胶囊模型及吸收光谱

提出了金纳米棒状微粒的胶囊模型,用Waterman发展的T矩阵方法计算了金纳米棒状微粒的吸收光谱.计算谱和实验谱基本符合,520 nm左右处的吸收峰对应于金纳米棒的横向表面等离体子共振（横模）,长波长处的吸收峰对应于金纳米棒的纵向表面等离体子共振（纵模）.随着金纳米棒纵横比的增加,纵模吸收峰表现出显著的红移,横模吸收峰则微弱地蓝移.此外,计算结果表明,金纳米棒状微粒外部介质的介电常数必须随着金纳米棒纵横比的增大非线性地减小.     

Calculated Optical Properties of Dielectric Shell Coated Gold Nanorods

Optical absorption spectra of dielectric shell coated gold nanorods are simulated using the discrete dipole ap- proximation method. The influence of the aspect ratio, shell thickness, dielectric constant of the shell, and surrounding medium on the longitudinal resonance mode is investigated. It is found that the coated dielectric shell does not affect the trend in the dependence of resonance position on the aspect ratio, while it broadens the resonant line width and reduces the sensitivity of plasmon resonance in response to changes of the surrounding medium. F~arthermore, the difference of dielectric constants between the shell and surrounding medium plays an important role in determining the resonance position. The screening effect of the dielectric shell tends to be less apparent for a thicker shell thickness.Optical absorption spectra of dielectric shell coated gold nanorods are simulated using the discrete dipole ap- proximation method. The influence of the aspect ratio, shell thickness, dielectric constant of the shell, and surrounding medium on the longitudinal resonance mode is investigated. It is found that the coated dielectric shell does not affect the trend in the dependence of resonance position on the aspect ratio, while it broadens the resonant line width and reduces the sensitivity of plasmon resonance in response to changes of the surrounding medium. F~urthermore, the difference of dielectric constants between the shell and surrounding medium plays an important role in determining the resonance position. The screening effect of the dielectric shell tends to be less apparent for a thicker shell thickness.     

Preparation of monodisperse bimetallic nanorods with gold nanorod core and silver shell and their plasmonic property and SERS efficiency

In this study, monodisperse bimetallic nanorods with gold (Au) nanorod core and silver (Ag) shell (Au@AgNRs) were synthesized through seed‐mediated growth process by reduction of AgNO₃ using Au nanorods with narrow size and shape distribution as seeds. With increasing the used amount of AgNO₃, the Ag shell thickness of their lateral facets is raised faster than that of their two tips, leading to a decrease of their aspect ratios. Four plasmon bands are observable on the extinction spectra of Au@AgNRs, which are attributed to the longitudinal dipolar plasmon mode, transverse dipolar plasmon mode, and octupolar plasmon mode of the core‐shell structured bimetallic nanorods, respectively. As their Ag shell thickness increases, their longitudinal plasmon band blue‐shifts notably with the transverse plasmon band blue‐shifting and the two octupolar plasmon bands red‐shifting slightly, due to the decrease of their aspect ratios and enhancement of Ag plasmon resonance contribution. When used as surface‐enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate for probing minute amounts of 4‐mercaptobenzoic acid in aqueous solution, Au@AgNRs have much stronger SERS activity than Au nanorods, and the obtained Raman signals are highly reproducible arising from their excellent monodispersity. Their SERS activity is remarkably increased with their Ag shell thickness thanks to the enhancing surface electric field and the chemical enhancement associated with electronic ligand effect. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Seedless synthesis of gold nanorods with longitudinal surface plasmon resonance wavelength of 1200 nm

Gold nanorods with the longitudinal plasmonic resonance peak position up to 1200?nm are prepared using an improved seedless synthetic technique. In this method, dopamine is employed as the weak reducer, whereas cetyltrimethylammonium bromide and sodium oleate are used as the binary surfactant mixture. Gold nanorods produced at various amounts of silver nitrate and hydrochloric acid were characterized by visible-near-infrared spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Results show that the sizes, length-to-width aspect ratios, and the corresponding longitudinal surface plasmon resonance peaks of the synthesized gold nanorods can be tuned by altering the silver nitrate and hydrochloric acid amounts. The present method provides a new procedure for fabrication of gold nanorods with a broad range of plasmonic resonance peaks, which has a great potential for applications such as photothermal therapy and sensing.     

金纳米棒三聚体中的等离激元诱导透明

基于金纳米棒构成的三聚体微元结构模型,详细地研究了等离激元诱导透明(plasmon induced transparency,PIT)现象产生的物理过程.研究发现,三聚体的吸收谱线随着其耦合距离以及尺寸的变化,竖直金纳米棒所对应的偶极明模在平行双长条金纳米棒对应的暗模作用下会产生分裂.依据这一结果提出了一个新的物理解释,PIT现象的产生主要来自于竖直金纳米棒中偶极振荡的模式分裂后的相干叠加.同时,考虑到两个振子之间的耦合会伴随着一定的相位关联性,进而引入了耦合相位因子修正了洛伦兹振子耦合模型,解析地研究了耦合相位因子对吸收谱的调控作用和分裂明模之间的相干叠加效应对PIT效应的影响.这为在纳米尺寸范围设计人造原子、光开关、慢光效应等方面的应用提供了理论参考.     

The theoretic analysis of maskless surface plasmon resonant interference lithography by prism coupling

The use of an attenuated total reflection-coupling mode of prism coated with metal film to excite the interference of the surface plasmon polaritons （SPPs） was proposed for periodic patterning with a resolution of subwavelength scale. High intensity of electric field can be obtained because of the coupling between SPPs and evanescence under a resonance condition, which can reduce exposure time and improve contrast. In this paper, several critical parameters for maskless surface plasmon resonant lithography are described, and the preliminary simulation based on a finite difference timedomain technique agrees well with the theoretical analysis, which demonstrates this scheme and provides the theoretical basis for further experiments.     

Numerical simulations on longitudinal surface plasmons of coupled gold nanorods

We analyze numerically the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) frequencies of coupled metal nanorods using discrete dipole approximation (DDA) and finite element method (FEM). The two configurations of identical nanorods are considered: end-to-end and side-by-side. Dependence of LSPR frequencies on the interparticle distance is determined by DDA. The latter for the case of large separations agrees with the result of approximate analytical method developed earlier for single metal nanorods. Distributions of electric near-fields of nanorods as well as enhancement factors at hot spots for both configurations are calculated by FEM.     

Amplification of raman scattering by localized plasmons in silver nanoparticles on the surface of zinc oxide nanorods

The magnetron sputtering of Ag nanoparticles onto ZnO nanorod arrays is studied. The lateral faces of the nanorods are coated with nanoparticles at a much lower density as compared to the flat faces at comparable sputtering times. The silver density is high on the edges of the lateral faces of the nanorods. The plasmon absorption in the synthesized arrays of nanorods coated with individual Ag nanoparticles is maximal at 450?C500 nm. The appearance of local plasmon excitations increases the intensity of the multiphonon processes with the participation of ZnO polar modes in Raman spectra. The cross section of resonance Raman scattering for A ₁(LO) phonon overtones increases with the equivalent Ag film thickness.     

银纳米棒光学性质的离散偶极近似计算

利用离散偶极近似 (Discretedipoleapproximation ,简称DDA)的方法 ,从理论上对粒子的形状、尺寸及周围介质等因素对银纳米粒子 ,特别是银纳米棒的光学性质的影响进行了较系统的研究 .计算表明 ,置于空气中的棒状银纳米粒子的光学性质与其形状密切相关 ,纵向表面等离子体共振吸收峰的位置随纳米棒长径比的增加呈现线性红移关系 .给出了空气中银纳米棒纵向表面等离子体共振吸收峰的位置随长径比变化的DDA拟合公式 .如果将金属纳米粒子置于折射率更高的介电环境中 ,其纵向等离子体共振吸收峰的位置进一步呈现线性红移关系 .合成的银纳米粒子的TEM图像及相关的UV VIS消光光谱显示DDA计算结果与实验值相当一致 .DDA算法与Mie′s理论在计算球状银纳米粒子的消光系数时给出很接近的结果 ,这表明用DDA的方法来分析银的光学性质是准确可靠的 ;而DDA算法对银纳米棒消光特性的成功拟合则表明 ,该算法相对Gans′理论而言 ,在研究纳米粒子的光学性质时具有更广的适用性及更高的准确性 .     

Plasmonic resonance enhancement of single gold nanorod in two-photon photopolymerization for fabrication of polymer/metal nanocomposites

We investigated the plasmonic resonance enhanced two-photon photopolymerization (PETPP) using the isolated chemical synthesized gold nanorods for fabrication of polymer/metal nanocomposites. The isolated gold nanorods with the plasmonic resonance band around 750 nm covered by photoresist were irradiated by a femtosecond laser with the wavelength of 780 nm. The PETPP trigged by the plasmonic resonance enhancement of gold nanorods was localized only in the distance smaller than 30 nm from the surface of gold nanorods, which matched the distance of plasmonic resonant enhanced field of the gold nanorod. The shapes of obtained polymer/gold nanocomposites were changed from the “dumbbell” to the “ellipsoid” with the increase of laser irradiating intensity used for PETPP. This study would provide a potential method for fabricating the plasmonic nanomaterials and nanostructures of polymer/metal nanocomposites, which could be expected to be applied in the emerging fields such as nanophotonics, nanobiosensor, nanolithography.     

金纳米颗粒等离激元对不同形貌氧化锌薄膜发光性能的调控

采用化学气相沉积法制备了纳米棒状的氧化锌纳米结构薄膜和没有纳米棒的氧化锌薄膜,通过直流溅射在所制备的有纳米棒和没有纳米棒的氧化锌薄膜上淀积约3 nm厚的金纳米颗粒薄膜,研究了金纳米颗粒对不同表面形貌氧化锌薄膜的发光特性的影响。实验发现金纳米颗粒的存在使具有纳米棒的氧化锌薄膜的紫外发射增强,但使来自缺陷的可见光发射受到很大的抑制。通过比较有纳米棒和没有纳米棒的氧化锌薄膜在镀金纳米颗粒前后的发光特性,发现金表面等离激元对氧化锌发光的调控取决于氧化锌的表面形貌,纳米棒的存在更有利于金纳米颗粒等离激元调控氧化锌的发光特性。     

Anisotropic Thermal Processing of Polymer Nanocomposites via the Photothermal Effect of Gold Nanorods

By embedding metal nanoparticles within polymeric materials, selective thermal polymer processing can be accomplished via irradiation with light resonant with the nanoparticle surface plasmon resonance due to the photothermal effect of the nanoparticles which efficiently transforms light into heat. The wavelength and polarization sensitivity of photothermal heating from embedded gold nanorods is used to selectively process a collection of polymeric nanofibers, completely melting those fibers lying along a chosen direction while leaving the remaining material largely unheated and unaffected. Fluorescence‐based temperature and viscosity sensing was employed to confirm the presence of heating and melting in selected fibers and its absence in counter‐aligned fibers. Such tunable specificity in processing a subset of a sample, while the remainder is unchanged, cannot easily be achieved through conventional heating techniques.     

Influence of amount of CTAB and ascorbic acid concentration on localized surface plasmon resonance property of gold nanorod

Gold nanorods (AuNRs) are prepared through seeded growth approach. Synthesis parameters of the amount of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), and concentration of ascorbic acid (AA) were studied. We were aiming for an aspect ratio of 3 which could be achieved by a nanorod feature in the range of 45 nm length and 15 nm width. The absorption spectra are observed with an UV–visible NIR spectrophotometer and analysed theoretically. It is known that there are two plasmon resonance peaks for gold nanorod corresponding to transverse surface plasmon resonance (TSPR) and longitudinal surface plasmon resonance (LSPR), respectively. It is found that as the concentration of CTAB increases, the yield of NRs increases. As the concentration of AA increased from 0.05 to 0.2 M, LSP shifts to longer wavelength but upon further increasing the concentration, LSP shifts back to shorter wavelength. A linear relationship between LSPR wavelength and surrounding medium dielectric constant is obtained, which is in good agreement with the theoretical results.     

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy of semiconductor nanostructures

We review our recent results concerning surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) by confined optical and surface optical phonons in semiconductor nanostructures including CdS, CuS, GaN, and ZnO nanocrystals, GaN and ZnO nanorods, and AlN nanowires. Enhancement of Raman scattering by confined optical phonons as well as appearance of new Raman modes with the frequencies different from those in ZnO bulk attributed to surface optical modes is observed in a series of nanostructures having different morphology located in the vicinity of metal nanoclusters (Ag, Au, and Pt). Assignment of surface optical modes is based on calculations performed in the frame of the dielectric continuum model. It is established that SERS by phonons has a resonant character. A maximal enhancement by optical phonons as high as 730 is achieved for CdS nanocrystals in double resonant conditions at the coincidence of laser energy with that of electronic transitions in semiconductor nanocrystals and localized surface plasmon resonance in metal nanoclusters. Even a higher enhancement is observed for SERS by surface optical modes in ZnO nanocrystals (above 10⁴). Surface enhanced Raman scattering is used for studying phonon spectrum in nanocrystal ensembles with an ultra-low areal density on metal plasmonic nanostructures.     

基于受激辐射信号的谱域光学相干层析分子成像方法

鉴于不同生理病理状态下组织复折射率实部的变化不大,传统光学相干层析(OCT)成像技术在分子特异性识别上存在先天不足.为此,本文提出了基于受激辐射信号的OCT成像方法,可在实现传统散射成像的同时,实现基于受激辐射信号的分子成像.在超高分辨率谱域OCT系统的基础上,通过增设光谱分光与调制抽运光支路,建立了基于单宽谱光源的抽运探测谱域OCT系统,详细推导了调制抽运下受激辐射信号的获取与成像公式.利用搭建的抽运探测谱域OCT系统,实现了瞬态受激辐射信号的相干探测.基于同时获取的受激辐射OCT信号和传统OCT信号,成功重构了氮化物粉末构建样品的基于受激辐射信号的分子对比OCT图像.     

Photoluminescence enhancement from hybrid structures of metallic single-walled carbon nanotube/ZnO films

We investigated the dependence of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) coupled photoluminescence (PL) emission on the density of a metallic single-walled carbon nanotube (m-SWCNT). The m-SWCNTs of various densities were deposited on top of ZnO films by spin coating and filtration transfer method to form the hybrid structures. We observed PL enhancement from ZnO films deposited with spin coated m-SWCNT, comparing with pure ZnO film. The m-SWCNT acts as absorbers for the light emitted due to SPR. After resonant excitation, hot electrons in m-SWCNT are created in high energy states, which can then transfer from the m-SWCNT to the conduction band of the ZnO films. We discuss the relationship between the hot electron flow generated by internal photoemission and LSPR.