Correlated Studies of Nanostructures and Optical Properties in Metallic Nanoparticles

Gold and silver nanoparticles have been the subjects of intense research during the past decade due to their optical properties and tremendous potentials in bio/chemical sensing, surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy and other surface enhanced spectroscopy methods. In order to tailor their unique properties and design functional materials and devices, a deeper understanding of the structure-property relationship of metal nanoparticles is required. We investigated the optical responses of the nanomaterials using localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) and single-molecule surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SMSERS) and correlate the responses with the nanostructures using transmission electron microscopy (TEM).

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Top: LSPR (left) and SMSERS (right) images of the same area of a TEM grid. Bottom: Bright (left) and Dark (right) field TEM images of SMSERS active region.

 

S.K. Eswara Moorthy, Y. Wang, E. Ringe, G.C. Schatz, R.P. Van Duyne and L.D. Marks

Publications:
Cadmen, J., Dieringer, J., Wang, Y., Masiello, D., Marks, L. Schatz, G., Van Duyne, R.; “Probing the Structure of Single-Molecule Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Hot Spots,” J. Am. Chem. Soc., 130, 12616-12617 (2008). ABSTRACT

McMahon, J., Wang, Y., Sherry, L., Van Duyne, R., Marks, L., Gray, S. and Schatz, G; “Correlating the Structure, Optical Spectra, and Electrodynamics of Single Silver Nanocubes,” J. Phys. Chem. C, 113, 2731–2735 (2009). ABSTRACT

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The Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) is supported by the National Science Foundation under NSF Award Number DMR-0520513. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Science Foundation.
© 2008 Northwestern University