Electrical Control of LSPR from Gold Nanoparticles Using Electrochemical Oxidation

Abstract

Large shift of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) spectrum of gold nanoparticles was attained by electrochemical oxidation of the nanoparticle surface. This oxidation occurred in a cell consisting of a pair of indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes with water medium between the electrodes. On one side of the ITO electrode, the gold nanoparticles were adsorbed. The LSPR spectrum was moved consecutively to the red by increasing the applied positive voltage. By the application of 5 V to the cell, the spectrum shift as large as 55 nm was obtained. Though the spectrum shift has already been observed by changing liquid crystal (LC) orientation surrounding gold nanoparticles, the amount of the shift was not large (11 nm). That was because the variation of the effective refractive index of LC was rather small. Our large shift due to electrochemical oxidation resulted from the large refractive index of Au-O. The upper limit of the LSPR spectrum shift by our method is estimated to be 138 nm.