Gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) have attracted interest as an X-ray contrast agent due to exhibiting high X-ray attenuation, colloidal stability, vascular retention, and facile surface functionalization for targeted delivery to cells and tissues. However, the effects of Au NP size on X-ray attenuation and binding affinity to a targeted surface are not well-understood. Therefore, the effect of Au NP...

Gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) with opposite surface charge can form aggregates through electrostatic interaction and exhibit surface plasmon resonance (SPR) induced-localized electromagnetic (EM) field enhancement under light irradiation. Intracellular aggregation of Au NPs can further improve the therapeutic efficiency of Au NP-enhanced photodynamic therapy of cancer by promoting singlet oxygen ...

The spatial arrangement of metal nanoparticle (NP) arrays in block copolymers has many potential applications in OFET-type memory devices. In this study, we adopted a trapping approach in which we used a monolayer thin film of polystyrene-block-poly(4-vinylpyridine) (PS56k-b-P4VP8k)-a highly asymmetric diblock copolymer having a spherical micelle morphology-to incorporate various amounts of one...

A gold/silicon nanocomposite structure (NCS) was formed on a Si(100) surface by nanosecond pulsed laser irradiation. The Au/Si NCS contained both Au nanoparticles (NPs) and Au-Si alloy layers. We report that the use of laser irradiation to form Au NPs comprises two competing processes: a top-down effect involving decomposition into smaller NPs and a bottom-up effect involving self-assembly or s...

A sandwich structure consisting of Ag nanoparticles (NPs), p-aminothiophenol (p-ATP) self-assembled monolayers (SAMs), and Ag NPs was fabricated on glass and characterized by surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). The SERS spectrum of a p-ATP SAM in such sandwich structure shows that the electromagnetic enhancement is greater than that on Ag NPs assembled on glass. The obtained enhancement f...

Nanotechnology has become more and more potentially used in diagnosis or treatment of diseases. Advances in nanotechnology have led to new and improved nanomaterials in biomedical applications. Common nanomaterials applicable in biomedical applications include liposomes, polymeric micelles, graphene, carbon nanotubes, quantum dots, ferroferric oxide nanoparticles, gold nanoparticles (Au NPs), a...

Therapeutic drug delivery across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) is not only inefficient, but also nonspecific to brain stroma. These are major limitations in the effective treatment of brain cancer. Transferrin peptide (Tfpep) targeted gold nanoparticles (Tfpep-Au NPs) loaded with the photodynamic pro-drug, Pc 4, have been designed and compared with untargeted Au NPs for delivery of the photosen...

We report the optoelectronic device properties of individual Au-silica hybrid nanowires prepared by microwave plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. Due to the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect the photo-responsivity peak strongly depends on the shape of the embedded gold nanostructures in the silica nanowire in which the shape can be modified by controlling the growth time of Au-silic...

We report a controllable wet method for effective decoration of 2-dimensional (2D) molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) layers with Au nanoparticles (NPs). Au NPs can be selectively formed on the edge sites or defective sites of MoS2 layers. The Au-MoS2 nano-composites are formed by non-covalent bond. The size distribution, morphology and density of the metal nanoparticles can be tuned by changing the d...

Obtaining sufficient contrast is an indispensable requirement for detecting early stage cancer using optical coherence tomography (OCT), an emerging diagnostic tool that detects abnormal lesions with micrometer resolutions in real time. PEGylated gold nanoparticles (Au NPs; 87 nm in diameter) were formulated in aqueous dissolvable microneedles (dMNs; 200 μm height) for efficient, precisely cont...