Nekane Guarrotxena
Spanish National Research Council, Spain
Title: Engineering optical Raman active nanoassemblies for nanosensor purposes
Biography
Biography: Nekane Guarrotxena
Abstract
An important number of applications reports the use of noble metal nanoparticles (NPs) as optical tags in single-molecule assays, as local orientation- or sensitive biochemical- nanosensor and enhance Raman scattering of surface-bound molecules (SERS). Assembly of several NPs has also been used to develop scalable fabrication of new nano devices, just by playing with a controlled coupling chemistry. This condition requires positioning the reporting molecule within special sites in nanostructured metal surfaces where the enhancement is greatest. However, this rational clustering of two NPs (dimers or SERS hot-spots application) by solutions methods has been a notable challenge, since the current nanofabrication strategies are still far from ideal nano assembly–dissociation/ aggregation controls during performance or application. This communication reports a post synthetic purification approach which has overcome this difficulty yielding highly desirable optical Raman active nanoassemblies for nano sensors.