Luminescence of Gold Nanoparticles

The book emphasizes the role of surface effects in optical phenomena in nanoscience from two different perspectives. When systems are reduced in volume, the surface versus volume ratio increases: this translates, at the level of single nanostructures, into enhanced role of interfacial chemistry and thermodynamics, and, at the level of systems of nanostructures, into larger density on interfaces, which in turn leads to intriguing collective effects, such as plasmonics or multiple reflection and refraction phenomena. This chapter in particular deals with the possible machanisms leading to fluorescence from gold nanoparticles, due to both the metal core or eventual fluorophores covalently attached to their surface.