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Gold Nanoparticles for Plasmonic Biosensing: The Role of Metal Crystallinity and Nanoscale Roughness

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Abstract

Noble metal nanoparticles show specific optical properties due to the excitation of localized surface plasmons that make them attractive candidates for highly sensitive bionanosensors. The underlying physical principle is either an analyte-induced modification of the dielectric properties of the medium surrounding the nanoparticle or an increase of the excitation and emission rates of an optically active analyte by the resonantly enhanced plasmon field. Either way, besides the nanoparticle geometry the dielectric properties of the metal and nanoscale surface roughness play an important role for the sensing performance. As the underlying principles are however not yet well understood, we aim here at an improved understanding by analyzing the optical characteristics of lithographically fabricated nanoparticles with different crystallinity and roughness parameters. We vary these parameters by thermal annealing and apply a thin gold film as a model system to retrieve modifications in the dielectric function. We investigate, on one hand, extinction spectra that reflect the far-field properties of the plasmonic excitation and, on the other hand, surface-enhanced Raman spectra that serve as a near-field probe. Our results provide improved insight into localized surface plasmons and their application in bionanosensing.

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Notes

  1. The refractive index of 1.27 was chosen as a weighted mean of quartz (n = 1.46 at 700 nm, 60%) and air (n = 1, 40%) assuming a slightly stronger impact of the higher refractive medium. The spectral shift induced by using the dielectric functions of the annealed compared to the non-annealed gold films is largely independent of this choice.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Georg Jakopic of the Joanneum Research Institute in Weiz for the ellipsometry measurements. This work has been supported in part by the Austrian Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Förderung (FWF) under project no. 21235-N20.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Physics, Karl-Franzens University, Universitätsplatz 5, 8010, Graz, Austria

    Jean-Claude Tinguely, Claude Leiner, Andreas Hohenau & Joachim R. Krenn

  2. Laboratoire ITODYS, Université Paris Diderot, CNRS UMR 7086, 15 rue Jean de Baïf, 750013, Paris, France

    Idrissa Sow, Johan Grand, Nordin Felidj & Jean Aubard

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  1. Jean-Claude Tinguely
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  2. Idrissa Sow
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  3. Claude Leiner
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Correspondence to Jean-Claude Tinguely.

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Tinguely, JC., Sow, I., Leiner, C. et al. Gold Nanoparticles for Plasmonic Biosensing: The Role of Metal Crystallinity and Nanoscale Roughness. BioNanoSci. 1, 128–135 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12668-011-0015-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12668-011-0015-4

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