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Gold nanoparticle assemblies of controllable size obtained by hydroxylamine reduction at room temperature

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Abstract

Colloidal nanoparticle assemblies (NPAs) were obtained in a one-step procedure, by reduction of HAuCl4 by hydroxylamine hydrochloride, at room temperature, without the use of any additional nucleating agent. By changing the order of the reactants, NPAs with mean size of ~20 and ~120 nm were obtained. Because of their size and irregular popcorn like shape, the larger size NPAs show absorption in the NIR spectral region. The building blocks of the resulted nanoassemblies are spherical nanoparticles with diameters of 4–8 and 10–30 nm, respectively. Moreover, by stabilizing the colloid with bovine serum albumin at different time moments after synthesis, NPAs of controlled size between 20 and 120 nm, could be obtained. The NPAs were characterized using UV–Vis spectroscopy, TEM and SEM electron microscopies. In addition, the possibility of using the here proposed NPAs as surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate was assessed and found to provide a higher enhancement compared to conventional citrate-reduced nanoparticles.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by CNCSIS-UEFISCSU, project number PN-II-RU-TE-2012-3-0227. Dr. Oana Ponta is highly acknowledged for TEM and SEM measurements.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Physics, Babeş-Bolyai University, Kogalniceanu 1, 400084, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    István Sz. Tódor, László Szabó, Oana T. Marişca, Vasile Chiş & Nicolae Leopold

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  1. István Sz. Tódor
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  2. László Szabó
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  3. Oana T. Marişca
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  4. Vasile Chiş
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  5. Nicolae Leopold
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Correspondence to Nicolae Leopold.

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Fig. S1

UV–Vis absorption spectra of the NPAs120 colloid recorded at different time moments afterpreparation, as indicated in the figure. The values in brackets correspond to the absorption maximum ofeach spectrum. Supplementary material 1 (TIFF 1294 kb)

Fig. S2

UV–Vis absorption spectra of the colloidal samples shown in Fig. S1, recorded one week afterstabilization with albumin. The legend in the figure shows the stabilization moment after synthesis andthe absorption maximum of each spectrum in brackets. Supplementary material 2 (TIFF 1294 kb)

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Tódor, I.S., Szabó, L., Marişca, O.T. et al. Gold nanoparticle assemblies of controllable size obtained by hydroxylamine reduction at room temperature. J Nanopart Res 16, 2740 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-014-2740-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-014-2740-4

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