Task Oriented Applications of Nanoparticles for Sensing and Enhanced Light Manipulation Capabilities

Utilizing the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of gold nanoparticles enables their usage in various fields such as biology, photonics and engineering. The main interest stems from the strong light absorption and scattering at the LSPR wavelength.

We have presented new nanostructures designs and methods for utilizing the special physical properties of metallic nanoparticles by changing the dominance of scattering over absorption or vice versa and tuning the LSPR wavelength over the spectrum. The change in the physical properties of the nanoparticles was done either by designing and manufacturing special nanostructures or by modulating the illumination.

This change in the optical absorption and scattering of the nanoparticles enabled us to clearly see cancerous cells, which can't be seen otherwise due to strong noise, by marking a tumor with them with modulated laser illumination. Moreover, we distinguished between areas with and without nanoparticles using a photo-thermal camera. Illuminating the nanoparticles caused them to absorb energy which translated to local heat. We examined the change in the thermal maps to achieve accurate detection of the areas enriched with the nanoparticles. Furthermore, special nanostructure design enabled as the creation of self-periodical heating-cooling cycles, which can be very useful for photo-acoustic imaging.

* Ph.D. research supervised by Prof. Zeev Zalevsky and Prof. Moshe Sinvani