We report fast and simple green synthesis of plasmonic silver nanoparticles in the epidermal cells of onions after incubation with AgNO3 solution. The biological environment supports the generation of silver nanostructures in two ways. The plant tissue delivers reducing chemicals for the initial formation of small silver clusters and their following conversion to plasmonic particles. Additional...

Magnetic and plasmonic properties combined in a single nanoparticle provide a synergy that is advantageous in a number of biomedical applications including contrast enhancement in novel magnetomotive imaging modalities, simultaneous capture and detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs), and multimodal molecular imaging combined with photothermal therapy of cancer cells. These applications hav...

Plasmonic polymers are quasi one-dimensional assemblies of nanoparticles whose optical responses are governed by near-field coupling of localized surface plasmons. Through single particle extinction spectroscopy correlated with electron microscopy, we reveal the effect of the composition of the repeat unit, the chain length, and extent of disorder on the energies, intensities, and line shapes o...

We describe approaches to enhance localized surface plasmons by placing metallic nanoparticles into two different structures: (i) Fabry-Perot (F-P) resonant cavities, and (ii) Photonic crystal slot waveguides. Through synchronization of the plasmonic and resonant modes, electric field at the surface of the nanoparticles is enhanced by a factor of 4~20 compared with the nanoparticles in free spa...

Reversible assembly of plasmonic nanoparticles can be used to modulate their structural, electrical, and optical properties. Common and versatile tools in nanoparticle manipulation and assembly are optical tweezers, but these require tightly focused and high-power (10-100 mW/μm2) laser beams with precise optical alignment, which significantly hinders their applications. Here we present light-di...

In this article, the effect of plasmonic properties of metal nanoparticles with different shapes, and moreover, their plasmonic-photonic interaction, on solar cell performance were investigated and simulated. Because of low conversion efficiency and then high cost of solar cells, it is difficult to commercialize and replace them with conventional energy resources. But in recent years, the plasm...

We fabricated plasmonic gold nanoparticle (AuNP)-TiO2 nanocomposite films and measured the photocurrent that originates from the water-splitting reaction catalyzed by the AuNP-TiO2 nanocomposite photoelectrocatalytic (PEC) electrode. The localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of the gold nanoparticles affected the generation of photocurrent by TiO2 upon illumination with visible light. Elec...

Plasmonic graphene is fabricated using thermally assisted self-assembly of silver nanoparticles on graphene. The localized surface-plasmonic effect is demonstrated with the resonance frequency shifting from 446 to 495 nm when the lateral dimension of the Ag nanoparticles increases from about 50 to 150 nm. Finite-difference time-domain simulations are employed to confirm the experimentally obser...

Magnetic nanoparticles functionalized with thermoresponsive polymers become photoresponsive when attached to plasmonic nanoparticles to form heterodimers. Under solar illumination, the plasmonic particles absorb sunlight and induce localized heating, causing collapse of the thermoresponsive polymer chain and clustering of the dimers that facilitate magnetic separation.

................................................................................................................................ vii CHAPTER 1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION ............................................................................ 1 1.1 Motivation .................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Thesis Organizati...