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Gold@Silver@Gold Core Double-Shell Nanoparticles: Synthesis and Aggregation-Enhanced Two-Photon Photoluminescence Evaluation

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Abstract

A facile, straightforward, and low-cost method is proposed to synthesize gold@silver@gold core double-shell nanoparticles. The technique is a seed-mediated growth protocol that contains four steps of (1) gold seed synthesis, (2) gold seed growth, (3) silver layer coating through silver salt reduction, and (4) gold layer deposition via gold precursor reduction. The prepared nanoparticles had a narrow size distribution and the average particle size of 28 ± 1 nm. Cysteine was introduced to the nanoparticles solution as a coupling agent to assemble nanoparticles. Aggregation-induced two-photon photoluminescence enhancement of three types assembled nanoparticles, i.e., gold@silver@gold, gold@silver, and gold nanoparticles, was studied. It was observed that the assembled core double-shell nanoparticles presented huge enhancement in two-photon photoluminescence signal in comparison with two other nanoparticles. Moreover, the gold@silver@gold nanoparticle is a stable and biocompatible plasmonic nanosystem. This paper provides a novel candidate for two-photon photoluminescence excitation sensing and imaging for biomedical applications.

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Acknowledgments

Prof. Q.H. Xu at NUS is appreciated for providing synthesis and characterization facilities. Dr. M. Garai and Mr. D. Lyu at NUS are appreciated for providing help in the synthesis and TPPL spectra measurements.

Funding

This work was financially supported by Iran’s National Elites Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

    Shervin Daneshvar e Asl & Sayed Khatiboleslam Sadrnezhaad

  2. Department of Chemistry, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Shervin Daneshvar e Asl

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  1. Shervin Daneshvar e Asl
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  2. Sayed Khatiboleslam Sadrnezhaad
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Correspondence to Shervin Daneshvar e Asl.

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Daneshvar e Asl, S., Sadrnezhaad, S.K. Gold@Silver@Gold Core Double-Shell Nanoparticles: Synthesis and Aggregation-Enhanced Two-Photon Photoluminescence Evaluation. Plasmonics 15, 409–416 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-019-01041-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-019-01041-5

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