The unique optical properties such as brightness, non-bleaching, good bio-compatibility make gold particles ideal label candidates for molecular probes. Due to the strongly enhanced field, aggregation of gold nanoparticles finds themselves plenty of applications in bio-imaging. But limited by its small cross-section associated with nanometer sized particle, it is a big challenge to employ it in a single molecular detection. The field enhancement results from the effect of plasmonic coupling between two closely attached gold nanoparticle under the right excitation condition. With the aim to apply the gold dimer probe to find the molecules in our recently established optical detection method, we compared of the amplitude enhancement by the dimer relative to a single particle. The amplitude distribution under a highly focused illumination objective was calculated, whose results suggest that at the optimized excitation condition, the local field can be enhanced ~190 fold. In consequence, experimental detection was carried out. Gold dimers were linked together by the hybridization of two single chain DNAs. Dimer and single particle probes were mixed together in one detection. Overwhelming contrast between these two kinds of probes were clearly exhibited in the experimental detection image. This method can provide a way to a high specific detection in early diagnosis.
The unique advantages such as brightness, non-photobleaching, good bio-compatibility make gold nanoparticles desirable labels and play important roles in biotech and related research and applications. Distinguishing gold nanoparticles from other dielectric scattering particles is of more importance, especially in bio-tracing and imaging. The enhancement image results from the localized surface plasmon resonance associated with gold nanopartilces makes themselves distinguishable from other dielectric particles, based on which, we propose a dual-wavelength detection method by employing a high sensitive cross-polarization microscopy.
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