Wet-chemical Passivation of Anisotropic Plasmonic Nanoparticles for LSPR-sensing by a Silica Shell

Abstract

Metal nanoparticles showing the effect of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR), a collective oscillation of the conduction electrons upon interaction with light, represent an interesting tool for bioanalytics. This resonance is influenced by changes in the environment, and can be therefore used for the detection of molecular layers. The sensitivity, this means the extent of wavelength resonance shift per change in refractive index in the environment, represents an important performance parameter. It is higher for silver compared to gold particles, and is also increased for anisotropic particles. So silver triangles show a high potential for highly sensitive plasmonic nanoparticles. However, the stability under ambient conditions is rather poor. The paper demonstrates the passivation of silver triangles by silica coating using a wet-chemical approach. It compares the sensitivity for particles with and without passivation, and visualizes the passivation effect in a high resolution, single particle TEM study.