Abstract
This work is focused on the characterization by transmission and scanning–transmission electron microscopy-related techniques of core–shell nanoparticles synthesized via chemical methods. Different semiconducting, pure metallic or oxide materials have been utilized as the core (cadmium telluride, gold, magnetite, or magnetite covered with gold) of the nanoparticle, while they have been, in all cases, functionalized by a thin amorphous glutathione layer, with the goal of using the nanoparticles in biomedical applications such as biomarkers, and computerized tomography and image magnetic resonance contrast agents. The results show that it is possible to visualize the glutathione layer using spectroscopic and imaging techniques, associated with electron microscopy (such as energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy images), that this layer is present at the surfaces of all observed nanoparticles, and that it is no thicker than a few nanometers. Electron microscopy also revealed that the nanoparticles core is crystalline and, in average, around 5-nm size.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the SC-ICYT and the CITIUS central services of the Universities of Cádiz and Seville, respectively, which made possible the sample preparation and TEM studies in this work. A. J. Santos would like to thank the IMEYMAT Institute and the Spanish Ministry of Education and Culture for the concessions of Grants ICARO-173873 and FPU16-04386. The authors would like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness for the economic support to the research project MAT2015-67354-R (Program “Plan I + D + i”, subprogram “Retos”).
Funding
This work has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, through the research project “Síntesis asistida por láser de nanopartículas ternarias: una ruta alternativa para la fabricación de nuevos agentes de contraste multimodales para el diagnóstico temprano del cáncer de mama”, reference: MAT2015-67354-R, of the Program “Plan I + D + i”, subprogram “Retos”.
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RL and OB-M contributed to the study conception and design. Nanoparticle systems were synthetized by RL and EF. (S)TEM microscopy techniques were carried out at three different microscopes by AMB, JMM, AJS and FMM. OB-M and JMM, as “investigadores principales” (main researchers) of Research Project MAT2015-67,354-R, managed the necessary economical funds that allowed this work. The first draft of the manuscript was written by AMB and JMM and all authors commented on the previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Beltrán, A.M., Mánuel, J.M., Litrán, R. et al. (S)TEM structural and compositional nanoanalyses of chemically synthesized glutathione-shelled nanoparticles. Appl Nanosci 10, 2295–2301 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13204-020-01418-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13204-020-01418-7