Regular Article

Nano-assembling and optical properties of sub-100 nm raspberry-like nanoparticles

¹ Laboratoire d'Etude des Matériaux Electroniques pour Application Médicales (LEMEAMED), Faculty Technology Sciences, Department of Electronics, Brothers Mentouri University, 25000 Constantine, Algeria
² Institute Light Matter, UMR5306, University of Lyon1-CNRS, 69622 Villeurbanne Cedex, France

^* e-mail: daoudi.chouaib@gmail.com

Received: 13 February 2018
Accepted: 21 June 2018
Published online: 3 August 2018

Abstract

The optical properties of sub-100 nm raspberry-like nano-systems composed of highly monodisperse silica particles and large gold nanoparticles (GNPs) is studied experimentally. The nanoparticles (NPs) were prepared by a self-assembly method, and the pH of each solution was determined by measuring the ζ-potential to ensure the stability of the nano-systems. Dynamic light scattering measurements show a narrow size distribution of NPs, and fairly dispersed particles in solution. The obtained nanoraspberries was also studied by transmission electron microscopy, which shows that the GNPs closely packed on the surface of silica particles. This effect induced a broadening and a shift of the absorption band to higher wavelengths, with an increase in GNPs density. It was also observed that the reduced size of silica particles resulted in a shortening of the inter-particles distance, which has favoured the generation of many hot spots in the gaps between GNPs. The tenability of obtained plasmon bands may have benefits in SERS probe, photocatalysis and fluorescence-based bioimaging.