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Optical plasmonic star-shaped nanoprobes for intracellular sensing and imaging

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Abstract

The gold nanostars (GNSs) with sharp branches have shown tunable strong localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) peak in the NIR region by varying the size and the shape of the branches which cause to use them for applications such as surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), intracellular imaging and sensing. In this paper, plasmonic nanoprobes based on the GNSs with different morphology have been designed and embedded in the human skin tissue as a surrounding media. The strong Raman scattering has been calculated for GNSs. Furthermore, the high refractive index sensitivity (\(RIS\)), the effective figure of merit (FOM) enhancement with minimum cellular damage in intracellular imaging, are observed. The \(RIS\) and \(FOM\) are found to be dependent on the shape and the size of the GNS and the dielectric constant of the surrounding medium. Our results briefly demonstrate the existence of electromagnetic hotspot in the sharp branches of the GNS with the high LSPR peak in the tissue diagnostic window. Moreover, we obtained the high \(RIS\) of 856 \(\left( {{\raise0.7ex\hbox{${nm}$} \!\mathord{\left/ {\vphantom {{nm} {RIU}}}\right.\kern-\nulldelimiterspace} \!\lower0.7ex\hbox{${RIU}$}}} \right)\), and a large \(FOM\) around 2.1 \(\left( {RIU^{ - 1} } \right)\) with the wide resonance spectra in comparison with previously presented nanoparticles. We present guideline for designing the specific nanostar based LSPR nanoprobe with high sensitivity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

    Mohanna Etemadi, Saeed Golmohammadi, Abolfazl Akbarzadeh, Seyed Hossein Rasta & Yashar Sarbaz

  2. Tabriz University of Medical Science, Tabriz, Iran

    Mohanna Etemadi, Saeed Golmohammadi, Abolfazl Akbarzadeh, Seyed Hossein Rasta & Yashar Sarbaz

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  1. Mohanna Etemadi
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  2. Saeed Golmohammadi
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Correspondence to Saeed Golmohammadi.

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Etemadi, M., Golmohammadi, S., Akbarzadeh, A. et al. Optical plasmonic star-shaped nanoprobes for intracellular sensing and imaging. Opt Quant Electron 53, 688 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11082-021-03304-0

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