Journal of Modern Physics, 2011, 2, 944-953
doi:10.4236/jmp.2011.29112 Published Online September 2011 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/jmp)
Synthesis and Biomedical Application of SiO2/Au
Nanofluid Based on Laser-Induced Surface Plasmon
Resonance Thermal Effect
Mohammad E. Khosroshahi*, Mohammad Sadegh Nourbakhsh, Lida Ghazanfari
Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Biomaterials Group,
Laser and Nanobiophotonics Lab., Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
Received September 18, 2010; revised March 26, 2011; accepted April 15, 2011
Abstract
We described the synthesis of Au coated SiO2 nanoshells linked with NH2 biomolecular ligands using a sim-
ple wet chemical method with a particular application for laser tissue soldering. Tunable nanoshells were
prepared by using different gold colloidal concentrations. The nanoshells are characterized by UV-vis spec-
troscopy, FTIR, XRD and AFM. The FTIR results confirmed the functionalized surfaces of silica nanoparti-
cles with NH2 terminal groups. A broad absorption was observed between 470 - 600 nm with a maximum
range between 530 - 560 nm. Based on the XRD results three main peaks of Au (111), (200) and (220) were
identified. In addition, AFM results showed that the diameter of silica core was between 90 - 110 nm with
gold shell thickness between 10 - 30 nm. A possible tissue soldering using gold nanoshells and laser-induced
thermal effect based on surface plasmon resonance is demonstrated. In our case this corresponds to 90˚C (i.e.
below vaporization) using the higher gold concentration (2 ml) at 60 W·cm–2.
Keywords: Gold Nanoshells, Synthesis, UV-vis Spectroscopy, XRD, AFM, Tissue Soldering PACS 44.40 +
a, 78.20.-n, 78.20.nb
1. Introduction
Plasmonic materials have been used for at least 1700
years, although it is believed that those days craftsman
did certainly not understand the physics behind them.
But one of the oldest and glamorous plasmonic glass
materials is the “Lycurgus” cup from the fourth century
A.D. which appears red when transilluminated, but
shines green when imaged in reflection. Basically a
nanoshell is a type of spherical nanoparticles consisting
of a dielectric core which is covered by a thin metallic
shell. A nanoshell involves plasmon which essentially is
a collective excitation or quantum plasma oscillation
where the electrons simultaneously oscillate with respect
to all the ions. The interaction of light and nanoparticles
affects the displacement of charges which in turn affects
the coupling strength. Such nanoparticles exhibit strong
optical scattering and absorption at above region due to
localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR). This is a
classical effect in which the light’s electromagnetic field
drives the collective oscillation of the nanoparticles free
electrons into resonance. The resonance is the effect of
maximum oscillation amplitude at particular frequency.
The subject was theoretically described by Mie in 1906
by solving Maxwell equations for a metal sphere sur-
rounded by a dielectric medium using the dielectric func-
tion of the bulk metal [1-3]. Gold nanoshells exhibit
strong absorbance with tunable wave length in the NIR
region where effectively converts the light energy into
heat. But one major common disadvantage in biomedical
applications is the lethal over dose of radiation as a side
effect and hence increasing the chance of damaging sur-
rounding healthy tissue. However, one possible practical
approach would be to use NIR light due to lack of ab-
sorption by tissue component and LSPR because the in-
crease in the magnitude of the oscillations effectively
converts the light energy into heat. In this respect, not
only gold seems very useful but also due to its superior
physic-chemical properties e.g.: corrosion resistant, low
toxicity, conformational flexibility which all make this
noble metal very attractive for biomedical applications
[4,5]. It worth to notice that gold nanoshells have similar

M. E. KHOSROSHAHI ET AL.
945
properties to gold nanoparticles but with the added bene-
fit of being tunable to different wavelengths, using dif-
ferent thickness. Also they are more efficient in convert-
ing EM waves to energy than nanoparticles. This is due
to plasmon resonance along both the inner and the outer
surfaces of the shell, as opposed to nanoparticles only
having resonances along the outer surface. In fluids, con-
siderable attention has been devoted to the so called
nanofluids [6,7], in which nanoparticles in dilute suspen-
sion appear to modify both bulk heat transfer and critical
heat fluxes. Generally nanofluids are formed by dispers-
ing nanometer-sized particles (1 - 100 nm) or droplets in
heat transfer fluids. Nanoparticles have unique properties,
such as large surface area to volume ratio, dimension-
dependent physical properties and lower kinetic energy
which can be exploited by the nanofluids [8]. At the
same time, the large surface area makes nanoparticles
better and more stably dispersed in base fluids. Com-
pared with micro-fluids or mili-fluids, nanofluids stay
more stable, so they are promising for many practical
applications such as in medicine and clinical engineering.
In this work, we report the synthesis, characterization
and application of binary SiO2/Au nanofluids with dif-
ferent concentrations for tissue soldering based on LSPR.
2. Theory
2.1. E.M.W-Metal Interaction
Basically, the rationales behind the metallic core-shell
nanofluid lies in the following steps: field coupling, dis-
placement of charges, dielectric polarization (i.e. electric
dipole moment) and harmonic oscillator. Let us assume
the total energy (u) of a electromagnetic field is obtained
by integration over the corresponding volume (V) of
spherical nanoparticles,
23
0()
V
uErd  r (1)
where an oscillating photon with frequency ω has energy
u = ħω. One can get the average field strength =E


0
/V

  that corresponds to one photon. This quan-
tity is important if for example one wants to describe the
coupling of particle to the field oscillation. For mono-
chromatic planar waves the characteristic solution of the
Helmholtz equation is
22
()()kEr 0 (2)
in Cartesian coordinate (x, y, z):and these waves are
vector waves with constant polarization vector ε and am-
plitude E0,
()
0
(,) Re[e]
itkr
Ert E



 (3)
we define the wave vector by k·r = constant where r is
the distance and planes with phase Φ = ωt – kr. Now, in
conducting materials (such as Au shell in our case)
charges can be move freely but under influence of an
applied external time varying electric field (e.g. laser)
accelerate electrically charged particles and in doing so it
generates polarization and current through displacement
of charges. Thus by using Maxwell’s equation for time
varying fields, we get
H
j
t

 D
(4)
where D is dielectric displacement given by D
t



dis pol
jj

with jdis and jpol are displacement and polari-
zation currents respectively. Also we know that the po-
larization charge is defined as
PE


(5)
where χ the optical susceptibility is a constant. If the po-
larization is proportional to the electric field, χ is “linear”
(i.e. χ1), if not then the relation become non-linear” (i.e.
χ2, χ3). When the polarization significantly increases with
increasing E, the property used for special functions such
as oscillators.
2.2. Core-Shell Nanoparticle Plasmons
Resonance
The conduction band electrons in metals can undergo a
coherent oscillation, the so-called plasma oscillation. The
electromagnetic field of the incoming light wave can
induce polarization of the conduction electron which
means the electrons are displaced with respect to the
heavier positive core ions. The dielectric response of a
metal to electromagnetic radiation is given by the com-
plex dielectric constant,
cm
sp
cm
kc

 


 (6)
where ksp is the surface plasmon wave vector, ω is the
frequency of light and εc, εm represent the dielectric of
core (SiO2) and Au respectively. It should be noted that
εc is the (purely real) dielectric constant, and εm = εr + jεi
is the complex dielectric constant of the metallic
nanoparticles. The real part (εr) determines the degree to
which the metal polarizes in response to an applied ex-
ternal electric field and the imaginary part, jεi, quantifies
the relative phase shift of this induced polarization with
respect to the external field and it include losses (e.g.
ohmic loss as heat). An important quantity in a metal
dielectric response is the plasmon frequency defined as

946 M. E. KHOSROSHAHI ET AL.
2
2e
0
e
p
eff
n
m


 (7)
where ne is the density of electrons, e is the electron
charge (1.6 × 10–19 C) and ε0 is the vacuum dielectric
constant permittivity (8.85 × 10–12 Fm–1). We know that
the dimensions of metallic nanoparticles are so small that
light can easily penetrate the whole nanoparticle (unlike
the thin-film interface) and grasp at all conduction band
electrons. The result is that the sea of conduction band
electros is displaced with respect to positively charged
ions from the metallic lattice. The resulting electric di-
pole on the particle represents a storing force and hence
the nanoparticle can be considered as harmonic oscillator,
driven by a light wave and damped by some ohmic
losses e.g. heat as radiative (scattering) losses. The latter
is equivalent to the re-emission of photon on the expense
of nanoparticle plasmon (NPP) excitation. Since the
NPPs are localized, we do not have to worry about wave
vectors in their excitation. We can always excite a
spherical metal NPPR regardless of the incident radiation
direction. The only needed condition is to choose the
correct wavelength [9].
2.3. Harmonic Oscillators
The interaction of e.m.w radiation with polarizable mat-
ter goes back to H.Loretnz. In his model, electrons are
considered that are harmonically bound to an ionic core
with a spring (i.e. oscillatory atomic bond) and oscillat-
ing at optical frequencies ω0. The restoring force,
2
0r
F
mx

 and by assuming that damping of the os-
cillator is caused by release of the radiation energy, the
damping force given by d
()
d
d
x
Fm
t
  where γ is the
damping rate and 0

 . For simplification, we use
complex quantities to write the orbit radius,
x

thus we have,
rxiy
2
0eit
q
rr rE
m



 
  (8)
where Ee–iωt is the driving light-field. With the trial func-
tion r(t) = ρ(t)e–iωt, the equilibrium solution ρ(t) = ρ0 =
constant and
022
0
/
()
qE m
i





(9)
After some substitution and simplification one can get,
max 22
/2
() e
2(/2)
it
i
rtx iy

 



  (10)
in terms of the propagation of light in polarizable matter,
x and y give exactly the “dispersive” (x) and “absorptive”
(y) components of the radiation interaction. It is known
that an accelerated charge radiates and so a charged
harmonic oscillator has to lose energy.
3. Materials and Methods
Hydrogen tetrachloraurate (HAuCl4) (99.9%), tetraethy-
lortosilicate (TOES) (99.9%), 3-aminopropyltrimethox-
ysilane (APTMS), Tetrakiss hydroxymethyl phosphonim
chloride (THPC) (80% solution in water), Potassium
carbonate (99%), formaldehyde, ammonium hydroxide
solution (33% NH3) and ethanol (99%), HPLC grade
water and Sodium Hydroxide (99%) were obtained from
Sigma-Aldrich Co. Silica nanoparticles prepared using
following method: 3 ml of ammonia was first added to
50 ml of absolute ethanol, and then the mixture was
stirred vigorously for 15 minutes. Different amounts (1
ml (sample A), 1.5 ml (sample B)) of TEOS were added
to the mixture drop wise. For the concentration used here,
the induction period was approximately 45 minutes after
which the solution colour became cloudy as silica
nanoparticles were grown and eventually turned to an
opaque white solution. 25 μL of APTMS was then added
to 50 ml of the vigorously stirred silica nanoparticles
solution and allowed to react for 2 hour. The function-
alization reaction could be verified by stopping the stir-
ring and observing the separation of the mixture to two
layers: the APTMS-coated nanosilica particles precipi-
tated at the bottom of the reactor and a clear solution
remained at the top. The APTMS coated silica nanopar-
ticles were purified at three different centrifuge speeds
(2000, 3500 and 5500 rpm) for optimization purpose and
then re-dispersed in ethanol.
For preparation of colloidal gold nanoparticles, 0.5 ml
of 1 M NaOH and 1 ml of THPC solution (prepared by
adding 12 µL of 80% THPC to 1 ml of HPLC grade wa-
ter) were added to a 45 ml of HPLC grade water. The
solution was then stirred for 5 minutes. After this process
2 ml of 1% HAuCl4 in water was added to the stirred
solution. THPC gold solution preparation produced a
brown colour solution within a few seconds after addi-
tion of chloroauric acid.
For attachment of colloidal gold to nanosilica particles,
1ml of APTMS-functionalized nanosilica particles dis-
persed in ethanol was added to 10 ml of gold colloid (~7
× 1014 particles/ml) in a tube. The tube was shaken for 5
minutes and then was left to settle down for 2 hour. The
mixture was subsequently centrifuged at 2000 rpm and a
red colour pellet precipitated at the bottom of the tube.
The supernatant was removed and the remaining red-
colour pellet redispersed in HPLC grade water. The puri-
fied Au/APTMS/nanosilica particles then redispersed in

M. E. KHOSROSHAHI ET AL.
947
5 ml of HPLC grade water.
For growing the gold over the silica/APTMS/Au nano-
particles, 25 mg of potassium carbonate was dissolved in
100 ml water. After 10 minutes of stirring, 1.5 ml of 1%
HAuCl4 was added. This solution was initially yellow
and after 30 minutes became colourless. 0.5 ml of the
solution containing Au/APTMS/nanosilica was added to
the colourless solution. After addition of 20 µL of for-
maldehyde the colourless solution became purple. The
nanoshells were centrifuged and re-dispersed in HPLC
grade water for preparation of final product.
The ultraviolet/visible (UV/visible) extinction spectra
of the nanoparticles were measured in solution using the
UV/VIS-spectrophotometer (Philips PU 8620) in the
wavelength range of 190 to 900 nm with the appropriate
mixture of ethanol and water as a reference. Solution
spectra were obtained by measuring the absorption of a
dilute solution in a cell with a path length of 10 mm. The
synthesized silica, precursor seed particles and gold
nanoshells at different stages of shell growth was imaged
under the transmission electron microscopy TEM (Phil-
lips CM-200-FEG) operating at 120 kV. Samples were
prepared by placing a drop of solution on a carbon
coated copper grid and allowing the grid to dry on filter
paper. The surface topography and roughness as well as
the size of nanoshells were studied by atomic force mi-
croscopy (AFM) (Dual scope/Raster scope C26, DME,
Denmark). Mid-infrared spectra of absorbance peaks of
SiO2, APTMS/Silica and Au/APTMS/SiO2 were obtained
by transmission mode of Fourier Transform infrared
(FTIR; Brucker, EQUINOX 55, Germany).
4. Results and Discussion
4.1. Core-Shell Formation Procedure
Silica (SiO2) is a popular material to form core shell par-
ticles because of its extraordinary stability against co-
agulation. Its non-coagulating nature is due to very low
value of Hamaker constant, which defines the Van der
Waal forces of attraction among the particles and the
medium [10]. It is also chemically inert, optically trans-
parent and does not affect redox reactions at core sur-
faces [11,12]. For various purposes it is desirable that
particles remain well dispersed in the medium which can
be achieved by suitably coating them to form an encap-
sulating shell. It is worth mentioning that the synthesiz-
ing SiO2 nanoparticles may take place via the procedure
developed by Stober et al. [13] This method involves
hydrolysis and successive condensation of TEOS (Si
(C2H5O)4) in alcoholic medium as follows:
Si(OC2H5)4 + 4H2O → Si(OH)4 + 4C2H5OH
Si(OH)4 → SiO2 + 2H2O
The adsorption of gold colloids on the silica cores is
done by functionalizing their surface by APTMS with
amino groups having positive zeta potentials. The at-
tachment is basically achieved through electrostatic at-
traction between the aminated silica nanoparticles and
the gold colloids having negative charges. A TEM was
used to study the gold formation around silica core.
Small colloids of gold particles are attached to APTMS—
functionalized silica nanoparticles core which were then
used to template the growth of gold over layer.
4.2. Morphological Analysis
Generally, by varying the relative ratio of TEOS to sol-
vent one could synthesize the particles in various size.
Here, the silica particles synthesized by this procedure
were amorphous and porous and decrease in TEOS con-
centration led to the formation of smaller particles. The
effect of centrifuge speed and the amount of TEOS on
the diameter of silica core is shown in Figure 1. As it
can be seen the core diameter increases with increasing
the amount of TEOS and decreasing the centrifuge speed
which effectively controls the agglomeration state.
The TEM images of SiO2 (2a), SiO2/APTMS/Au (2b)
are shown in Figure 2. It is clearly seen that the SiO2/
APTMS/Au samples exhibit a relatively random size and
distribution of gold seeds with a variable size between 10 -
30 nm which is much larger than the mean particle size
of the THPC-induced gold colloids.
Figure 3(a) shows an AFM image of functionalized
silica nanoparticles (~100 nm) synthesized by the proce-
dure described earlier in the material and methods section.
A 3-D image of the surface morphology indicating its
roughness variation is shown in Figure 3(b). An example
of Au coated SiO2 nanoshells and its 3-D image are re-
spectively shown in Figures 3(c) and (d). The size of the
Figure 1. Effect of Centrifuge speed on the silica core di-
ameter at constant TEOS concentration.

948 M. E. KHOSROSHAHI ET AL.
Figure 2. TEM images of the SiO2 (a), Au-APTMS/SiO2 and
gold nanoshells samples (b) using 1ml TEOS.
nanoshells determined from AFM ranged between 90
and 110 nm. Surface roughness of SiO2/Au nanoshells is
calculated as 13 nm using SPM software. These images
provided useful information about surface topography
and the size of gold nanoparticles with well defined clar-
ity, which effectively is correlated to optical absorption
spectra.
4.3. Structural Analysis
Infrared spectroscopy offers a wealth of information re-
garding the structure of the surface of the nanoparticles.
In particular, IR spectroscopy affords insight into the
order and packing of the surface chains. The surface of
the core particles is often modified with bi-functional
molecules to enhance coverage of shell material on their
surfaces [14,15]. The surface of core particles e.g. silica
can be modified using bi-functional organic molecules
such as APTMS. This molecule has a methoxy group at
one end, and NH group at the other end. APTMS forms a
covalent bond with silica particles through the OH group
and their surface becomes NH-terminated. The FTIR
spectra of SiO2 functionalized with APTMS and gold
coated nanoparticles for samples A and B are shown in
Figures 4 and 5. The main peaks are 3431 cm–1 (NH2
asymmetric stretch), 1634 cm–1 (O-H bending) and 466
cm–1 for Si-O-Si bending mode. The shells showed Si-O-
Si symmetric stretching at 801 cm–1 and characteristic Si-
O-Si asymmetric stretching at around 1100 cm–1 respec-
tively [16-18].
The particle phase analysis was performed by X-ray
diffraction (XRD). The XRD pattern of nanoshells
shown in Figure 6 shows characteristic reflections of fcc
gold planes (No. 04-0784). The diffraction features ap-
pearing at 2θ = 38.20˚, 44.41˚, and 64.54˚ corresponds to
the (111), (200) and (220) planes of the standard cubic
phase of Au respectively.
4.4. Optical Properties
UV-visible spectra recorded for two different samples
are shown in Figure 7. For gold nanoparticles synthe-
sized by 1ml TEOS, a peak was observed at about 535
nm. However, when 1.5 ml was used the peak was
shifted to 556 nm. The resonance peak position depends
on the plasmon interaction between separate inner and
outer gold layers and the core-shell thickness. The addi-
tion of TEOS can efficiently cause the optical plasmon
peaks to undergo a red-shift, which is consistent with the
theoretical predictions of optical properties of metal
coated particles given below:
32
e
2
e
9(
[()2] ()
i
ext
ri
V
c

 

 



2
)
(11)
where V is the particle volume, ω is the angular fre-
quency of the exciting light, and c is the speed of light. εe
and εm(ω) = εr(ω) + jεi(ω) are the dielectric functions of
the embedding medium and the metal, respectively. The
peak broadening is similar to the results observed by
Wiesner [19] in spectroscopic studies of gold platelets in
solution. In their case, the growing silica layer began to
coalesce and encapsulated by different amounts of gold
nanoparticles. Furthermore, the complete synthesized
nanoshells, whose optical plasmon resonance peak ranges
in the 500 - 600 nm regions can be used as a powerful
tool in bio-imaging and bio sensing applications. The
optical absorption spectra shown in Figure 7 are rela-
tively broad compared with that of pure gold colloid. The
differences in peak positions and absorption intensities
were caused by the cluster sizes of the deposited gold
seeds on the silica nanoparticles, i.e., the stronger plas-
mon resonance was caused by larger-sized gold clusters
[20,21].
According to Mie scattering theory, the nanoshells
geometry can quantitatively accounts for the observed
plasmon resonance shifts and line-widths. In addition,
the plasmon line-width is dominated by surface electron
scattering [22,23]. The optical absorption of nanoshells
varies according to core-shell diameter. For smaller size
the peak shifts towards the shorter wavelength (blue shift)
and for longer size it shows a red shift.
4.5. Modelling
The numerical results are shown in Figure 8. Calcula-
tions of the optical absorption of silica-gold nanoshells
were performed by using a computer code employing
Mie scattering for concentric sphere geometry. The re-
uired parameters are the core and shell radii, R1 and R2, q

M. E. KHOSROSHAHI ET AL.
949
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
(e)
Figure 3. AFM photographs of surface topography of SiO2, 2-D (a), SiO2, 3-D (b), SiO2/Au 2-D (c), SiO2/Au 3-D (d) and
height distribution (roughness) of SiO2/Au nanoshells (e).
and εc, εm and εe the dielectric functions of the core, shell
and embedding medium respectively where εc was taken
to be 2.07 for the silica core at all wavelengths. µ
The values of complex dielectric function for gold at
different wavelengthsare obtained from Johnson and
Christy [24,25] and the refraction index of the embed-
ding medium of nanoshells ie.water is taken as 1.50.
However, the Drude model for the optical properties of a
free electron model states that the real (εr) and imaginary
(jεi) parts of the dielectric function are [26,27]:
2
2
2
1p
r




  (12)
2
22
()
p
i




 (13)
where ωр is the plasma frequency, ω = 2πc/λ, c the speed
of light in a vacuum, λ the wavelength of incident light

950 M. E. KHOSROSHAHI ET AL.
and γ the damping constant. Decreasing the size of a
nanoparticle will eventually cause the thickness to be-
come less than the bulk mean free path, and electron
scattering from the surfaces of the particle will have the
effect of decreasing and broadening its plasmon reso-
nance peak(s).
f
bulk
eff
r

  (14)
where γbulk is the damping constant for the bulk material,
υf is the electron velocity at the Fermi surface and reff is
effective mean free path of collisions. The latter can be
Figure 4. FTIR of SiO2 functionalized with APTMS for
sample A.
Figure 5. FTIR of SiO2 functionalized with APTMS for
sample B.
Figure 6. XRD spectra of gold nanoshells.
Figure 7. UV-visible spectroscopy of gold nanoshells syn-
thesized by different amount of TEOS.
Figure 8. Calculated absorption spectra as a function of the
wavelength.
calculated from [28]:

1
22
3
212 1
()(
2
eff
dddd
r  (15)
mr
ji



 (16)
3
12
1(/ )Prr (17)
(32 )2
ac m
PP



 (18)
(3 )
bc m
PP



 (19)
The value of the dipole approximation resides in its
ability give good estimation for the absorption and scat-
tering properties of nanoshells, including the position of
the resonant extinction peak. From Mie scattering theory,
the absorption σabs and scattering σsca cross—sections are
given by [29]:
32
24
0
8π
3
sca



,
0
2πIm( )
abs



 (20)
where λ is the wavelength and

0 = 8.85 × 10–12 Fm–1 is
the free space permeability and Im(α) is the imaginary

M. E. KHOSROSHAHI ET AL.
951
part of complex polarizability of particle (α).
Resonance occur when dominator approaches zero.
Therefore resonance wavelength depends on the ratio of
core—shell radius as well as the material properties.
As it can be seen in Figure 8 two peaks are observed
at 250 and 1000 nm where the first one is related to
HAuCl4 [30,31] and the second peak represents the gold
nanoshell with 100nm core diameter and 25 nm shell
thickness.
4.6. Thermal Properties
To evaluate the surface plasmon-based photothermal
effect of the synthesized nanostructure, variation of tis-
sue temperature was plotted as a function of laser power
density, see Figure 9. As it is seen not only the tempera-
ture increases with increasing the laser power density but
also the temperature rise at constant power density is
higher for higher gold concentration. This effectively
indicates that higher gold concentration is accompanied
with enhanced absorption cross section for spherical
metal nanoparticles to achieve a better tissue soldering.
Example of tissue before and after soldering at 60 W/cm2
is shown in Figure 10. It is clearly seen that the incision
is completely closed and there after it is expected that the
wound repair process to take place.
5. Conclusions
Gold nanoshells were synthesized by Duff-Stober tech-
niques and their chemical and optical properties were
investigated. A variety of parameters can influence the
Figure 9. Variation of SiO2/Au nanoshells temperature with
laser power density for different concentrations.
Figure 10. An example of skin tissue before and after laser
soldering at I = 60W/cm2. (a) Initial incision (b) Incision
plus nanofluid before soldering and (c) incision after treat-
ment.
self-assembly of gold nanoparticles into clusters attached
to the surfaces of functionalized silica nanoparticles
which in this case hydrophilic functional groups such as
NH2 led to the attachment of gold nanoparticles.
Smallest average size of silica was about 90 nm using
1 ml TEOS. Uv-vis spectroscopy demonstrated an ab-
sorption spectrum between 470 - 600 nm with a maxi-
mum peak at 550 nm which is different to experimental
modelling result at about 1000 nm. This difference em-
phasizes the importance of size variation and shells ran-
dom distribution in the laser wavelength selection for an
appropriate application. The unique, tunable and strong
optical responses of gold nanoshells are most desirable
as exogenous agent for biophotonics applications. The
core-shell morphology was also studied by AFM and
based on SPR and Mie theory higher concentration of
gold nanoparticles produced a higher temperature rise. A
maximum measured tissue surface temperature due to
SPR-induced thermal effect was about 130˚C at 80
W·cm–2 using 2 ml SiO2/Au nanoshells and diode laser.
The preliminary result of possible laser tissue soldering
employing core-metal shell is demonstrated and can fur-
ther be developed provided the physics and biophysics
behind is understood and clarified.
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3
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