Kurzfassung

Gold nanoparticles have remarkable optical characteristics due to the resonant excitation of plasmons at one specific wavelength. In contrast to so called quantum dots (Q-dots), which contain toxic heavy metals, gold nanorods are biocompatible. Gold nanorods exhibit highly efficient sustained two-photon luminescence orders of magnitude higher than conventional organic fluorophores without any photobleaching. Tuning the plasmon resonance to near-infrared wavelengths, where biological tissues...Gold nanoparticles have remarkable optical characteristics due to the resonant excitation of plasmons at one specific wavelength. In contrast to so called quantum dots (Q-dots), which contain toxic heavy metals, gold nanorods are biocompatible. Gold nanorods exhibit highly efficient sustained two-photon luminescence orders of magnitude higher than conventional organic fluorophores without any photobleaching. Tuning the plasmon resonance to near-infrared wavelengths, where biological tissues exhibit small extinction coefficients and reduced scattering, supports "deep tissue" imaging. Furthermore, tuning the emission properties by changing gold nanorod size and shape will make multiplex imaging applications feasible. The goals of this project are to generate imaging reagents based on gold nanorods for immulogically relevant molecules and establish microscopic imaging parameters for experiments with FZI groups. » weiterlesen» einklappen