Photothermal properties of stable aggregates of gold nanorods

Aggregation of the nanoparticles is a natural phenomena due to various biological and physical parameters but these aggregates are highly unstable. If aggregates would have been stable then it might be useful for some biomedical applications. To study the optical properties and photothermal heat generation of stable aggregates of the metal nanoparticles, we present a forced synthesis of aggregates of small gold nanorods in a mixture of Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle’s medium (DMEM) and Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA). We synthesized hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) coated gold nanorods and then prepared the stable aggregates to study the optical characteristics of these aggregates. Absorption spectra of aggregates show the redshift compared to the monodispersive gold nanorods and confirm that the shape and size of aggregate depend on the amount of BSA in DMEM as well as on the concentration of CTAB in the stock solution of the gold nanorods suspension. The higher concentration of the BSA in DMEM and lower concentration of CTAB of monodispersive gold nanorod suspension causes greater redshift. We tuned the well defined plasmonic absorption resonance peaks of the aggregates of gold nanorods up to the second biological therapeutic window. We studied the stability of the synthesized aggregates of gold nanorods for up to one week and found that the aggregates were stable for at least one week. A photothermal study of these aggregates was also carried out using high power broadband near-infrared light source. Aggregates were also photothermally stable which warrants their repeated use for such applications. The photothermal conversion efficiency of these stable gold nanorod aggregates were higher than its monodispersive form of the nanorods. The present study on the optical and photothermal properties of stable aggregates could be useful for biomedical therapeutic applications, sensing, deep tissue light penetration for imaging and other scientific applications to redshift the plasmonic absorption resonance peak and enhance the photothermal effect. [Display omitted]