Ultra-pure, water-dispersed Au nanoparticles produced by femtosecond laser ablation and fragmentation

Reda Kubiliūtė,1,2 Ksenia A Maximova,3 Alireza Lajevardipour,1 Jiawey Yong,1 Jennifer S Hartley,1 Abu SM Mohsin,1 Pierre Blandin,3 James WM Chon,1 Marc Sentis,3 Paul R Stoddart,1 Andrei Kabashin,3 Ričardas Rotomskis,2 Andrew HA Clayton,1,4 Saulius Juodkazis1,4 1Centre for Micro-Photonics and Industrial Research Institute Swinburne, Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Sciences Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC, Australia; 2Laboratory of Biomedical Physics, Vilnius University Institute of Oncology, Baublio, Vilnius, Lithuania; 3Aix-Marseille University, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Lasers, Plasmas and Photonics Processing Laboratory, Campus de Luminy, Marseille, France; 4The Australian National Fabrication Facility, Victoria node, Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC, Australia Abstract: Aqueous solutions of ultra-pure gold nanoparticles have been prepared by methods of femtosecond laser ablation from a solid target and fragmentation from already formed colloids. Despite the absence of protecting ligands, the solutions could be (1) fairly stable and poly size-dispersed; or (2) very stable and monodispersed, for the two fabrication modalities, respectively. Fluorescence quenching behavior and its intricacies were revealed by fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy in rhodamine 6G water solution. We show that surface-enhanced Raman scattering of rhodamine 6G on gold nanoparticles can be detected with high fidelity down to micromolar concentrations using the nanoparticles. Application potential of pure gold nanoparticles with polydispersed and nearly monodispersed size distributions are discussed. Keywords: nanotechnologies applications, methods of nanofabrication and processing, materials for nanomedicine