Highly Sensitive Depolarized Light Scattering To Monitor Aggregation of Spherical Gold Nanoparticles

Abstract

Aggregation of spherical gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) was monitored by simultaneous measurement of extinction, polarized light scattering (PLS), and depolarized light scattering (dPLS) spectra over time. The dPLS showed higher sensitivity to AuNP aggregation than the others due to its intrinsic sensitivity to the change in both the aspect ratio and volume of aggregates. This demonstrates that dPLS can be a very effective technique in various biochemical/chemical sensing applications based on the aggregation of AuNPs as probes.