Browsing by Author "Thibodeaux, Christyn A."

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    Impurity-Induced Plasmon Damping in Individual Cobalt-Doped Hollow Au Nanoshells
    (American Chemical Society, 2014) Thibodeaux, Christyn A.; Kulkarni, Vikram; Chang, Wei-Shun; Neumann, Oara; Cao, Yang; Brinson, Bruce; Ayala-Orozco, Ciceron; Chen, Chih-Wei; Morosan, Emilia; Link, Stephan; Nordlander, Peter; Halas, Naomi J.; Laboratory for Nanophotonics; Rice Quantum Institute
    The optical properties of plasmonic nanoparticles in the size range corresponding to the electrostatic, or dipole, limit have the potential to reveal effects otherwise masked by phase retardation. Here we examine the optical properties of individual, sub-50 nm hollow Au nanoshells (Co-HGNS), where Co is the initial sacrificial core nanoparticle, using single particle total internal reflection scattering (TIRS) spectroscopy. The residual Co present in the metallic shell induces a substantial broadening of the homogeneous plasmon resonance line width of the Co-HGNS, where the full width at half-maximum (fwhm) broadens proportionately with increasing Co content. This doping-induced line broadening provides a strategy for controlling plasmon line width independent of nanoparticle size, and has the potential to substantially modify the relative decay channels for localized nanoparticle surface plasmons.
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    Small Gold Nanostruct​ures in Cancer Theranosti​cs
    (2014-04-25) Thibodeaux, Christyn A.; Halas, Naomi J.; Nordlander, Peter J.; Link, Stephan
    The development of small (40-150nm) nanoparticles is of significant interest in biomedicine for effective detection and delivery of therapeutic molecules to diseased cells. The optical exploration of hollow gold nanoshells with sacrificial Co cores reveals the spectral FWHM increases due to the presence of Co while only minimally altering the spectral mean wavelength position. Other plasmon resonant nanostructures including nanoshells and nanomatryoshkas are valuable delivery and imaging vectors for oligonucleotide based therapies. In this study, light-triggered release of siRNA hybridized to a polypeptide functionalized NS is employed for gene silencing therapy of a specific pathogenic gene transcript with the intent to downregulate proteins. Similarly, fluorescently labeled NM are conjugated with an ESTA-1 aptamer via for bioimaging of highly specific inflammation targeting at metastasis sites. Each having advantageous platforms of ideal size, therapeutic gene optimization and heightened metastasis targeting, these three nanostructures prove viable functionality in cancer theranostics.