Absolute extinction and scattering cross sections for gold nanoparticle dimers were determined experimentally using a chemometric approach involving singular-value decomposition of the extinction and scattering spectra of slowly aggregating gold nanospheres in aqueous suspension. Quantitative spectroscopic data on plasmonic nanoparticle assemblies in liquid suspension are rare, in particular for particles larger than 40 nm, and in this work we demonstrate how such data can be obtained directly from the aggregating suspension. Our method can analyse, non invasively, the evolution of several sub-populations of nanoparticle assemblies. It may be applied to other self-assembling nanoparticle systems with an evolving optical response. The colloidal systems studied here are based on 20, 50 and 80 nm gold nanospheres in aqueous solutions containing sodium lipoate. In these systems, the reversible dimerisation process can be controlled using pH and ionic strength, and this control is rationalised in terms of DLVO theory. The dimers were identified in suspension by their translational and rotational diffusion through scattering correlation spectroscopy. Moreover, their gigadalton molecular weight was measured using electrospray charge-detection mass spectrometry, demonstrating that mass spectrometry can be used to study nanoparticles assemblies of very high molecular mass. The extinction and scattering cross sections calculated in the discrete-dipole approximation (DDA) agree very well with those obtained experimentally using our approach.

Photoluminescence (PL) quenching by gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) is a frequently applied principle in nanobiosensing. The quenching is most often explained in terms of the Förster resonance energy-transfer (FRET) mechanism, and more rarely in terms of the nanosurface energy-transfer (NSET) mechanism. Although both consider nonradiative resonance energy transfer, there are significant differences in predictions of the strength and the distance-dependence of the quenching. Here, we investigate the energy transfer to AuNPs from a terbium­(III)-complex (Tb) with a long (millisecond) PL decay time with the aim to provide a better understanding of the underlying energy-transfer process. The binding of Tb-labeled streptavidin (Tb-sAv) to biotinylated AuNPs (biot-AuNPs) was studied using light-scattering spectroscopy. Quenching of the PL of Tb-sAv upon binding to biot-AuNPs of different diameters (5, 30, 50, 80 nm) was studied by time-resolved PL spectroscopy. Energy-transfer efficiencies were found to be practically independent of the AuNP size. Analysis according to FRET theory yielded donor–acceptor distances that were inconsistent and far beyond the expected Tb–AuNP distance. In contrast, the NSET model yielded a good agreement between the Tb-to-AuNP surface distance estimated from the geometry of the Tb-sAv/biotin-AuNP assembly (4.5 nm) and those calculated from PL lifetime analysis, which range from 4.0 to 6.3 nm. Our findings strongly suggest that NSET (and not FRET) is the operational mechanism in PL quenching by AuNPs, which is important information for the development, characterization, and application of nanobiosensors based on PL quenching by AuNPs.