Processing and characterization of gold nanoparticles for use in plasmon probe spectroscopy and microscopy of biosystems.

Noble metal nanoparticles have great potential for applications in biochemical sensing and biological imaging because of their unique optical properties originating from the excitation of local surface plasmon resonances. We investigated gold nanoparticles with controlled size, shape, and passivating agents, along with a new process of guided self-assembly to create two-dimensional nanostructures from such nanoparticles.