Infrared Spectroscopy in Studying Biofunctionalised Gold Nanoparticles

Over the last decade, nano-sized particles of noble metals with surface plasmonresonance properties have found numerous applications in nanotechnology and scientific research, including diverse biological and biomedical fields (for recent reviews see, e.g. [1–9]. This also refers to (bio) functionalised metal nanoparticles, where the term ‘‘functionalisation’’ (or ‘‘biofunctionalisation’’) means conjugation of metal nanoparticles via either covalent bonds (e.g. involving thiol groups easily forming –S–metal bonds) or non-covalent binding forces (adsorption via charge attraction and/or hydrophobic interactions) with specific types of molecules [5, 10–12].