Nanoscience

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is a powerful plasmonics-based analytical technique for biosensing. SERS effect relies on nanostructures that need to be designed to maximize enhancement factors and molecular specificity. In addition to numerical modeling, an analytical tool capable of imaging localized enhancement would be an added value.

Exosomes are small extracellular vesicles, 30-150 nm in diameter, which have been determined to play a crucial role in extracellular signaling. They have been observed in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms, meaning they are incredibly widely spread in nature. Exosomes bud off from their parent cells in a sealed package, taking the properties of their parent cell walls with them and encasing many intracellular components.

Gold nanorods are rod-shaped gold nanoparticles. Fig. 1 shows that gold nanorods have two surface plasmon bands in the directions of the short and long axes derived from their anisotropic shapes.

The use of metal surfaces in conjunction with fluorescence molecules employing a plasmon effect, sometimes referred to as metal enhanced fluorescence, can be advantageous because of the possible enhancement of photophysical properties.

Certain fluorescent molecules, known as molecular rotors, can be employed to estimate the local (nanoscale) viscosity in microheterogeneous systems by measurement of their fluorescence lifetime. This can be advantageous over the usual fluorescence anisotropy method, as the measurement is simpler and faster to perform. This is demonstrated using the HORIBA Scientific TemPro fluorescence lifetime system to monitor the gelation of silica produced using the sol‐gel technique.

Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) associated to Raman spectroscopy has proven to be a powerful technique for probing chemical properties at the nanoscale. TERS in liquids will bring promising results in in-situ investigation of biological samples, catalysis and electrochemical reactions.

In recent years, Spectroscopic Ellipsometry application is extended to the life science. In this article, we introduce two examples from this field: Biocompatibility of DLC films and demineralization and remineralization process of tooth surface.

Research in nanoscience has garnered much interest because of the different properties of small structures compared to the respective bulk material.

InGaAs/GaAs and InAs/GaAs quantum dots (QDs) have been identified as suitable candidates for various applications in the terahertz range by using their intraband carrier transitions.

The NanoLog has a reputation as the premier instrument for the exploration of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs).

Silica is currently one of the most important industrial materials, whose nanoparticles are formed via a sol-gel process.

HORIBA Jobin Yvon’s spectrofluorometers have many applications in nanophotonics research: single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), quantum dots (QDs), and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). Quantum confinement affects nanomaterials’ photoluminescence: when the semiconducting nanoparticle is smaller than the bulk material’s Bohrexciton radius, the bandgap energy is inversely proportional to the nanoparticle size.

Quantum dots (QDs) are semiconducting spheres in the size typically in the range of 1 to 10nm. The size of these small spheres give quantum dots the semiconducting properties and resulting photoluminescence that would not necessarily occur for the same material on larger scales.

Quantum dots (QDs) have potential applications in optoelectronics, biosensing, biolabeling, memory devices, and sources of laser light.

HORIBA Jobin Yvon’s NanoLog® spectrofluorometer, specially optimized for recording near-IR fluorescence from nanoparticles, includes a double-grating excitation monochromator, imaging emission spectrograph with a selectable-grating turret, and a variety of detectors.

Corrected emission spectra1 of carbon nanoparticles can provide excitation–emission matrices (EEMs) for a range of excitation wavelengths.

Single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), consisting of rolled-up single sheets of carbon atoms, have received much attention recently.