Plasmonic device based on a PAAm hydrogel/gold nanoparticles composite

ABSTRACT Stimuli‐resposive hydrogels, such as poly(acrylamide), are smart materials that can be loaded with gold nanoparticles to explore the localized surface plasmon resonance effect to develop an optical device. Here we used electropolymerized poly(acrylamide) hydrogel for entrapped gold nanoparticles into gel structure (composite) to prepare a plasmonic device. Sensing tests were performed; for this bovine serum albumin molecules were placed into the composite by diffusion from an aqueous solution. The presence of the molecules alters the refractive index around the gold nanoparticles, changing its resonance conditions. The plasmonic band shifted ∼3.8 nm when the composite was incubated at the 20 µg/mL bovine serum albumin solution, which is a result comparable to reports elsewhere using gold nanoparticles on glass substrates. The device showed that it was possible to detect significantly low concentrations up to 10 ng/mL of protein in aqueous solution. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015, 132, 42449.