Tuesday, 14 August, 2007
Moving Nanoparticles with Raman Scattering
M. Ringler, T. A. Klar, A. Schwemer, A. S. Susha, J. Stehr, G. Raschke, S. Funk, M. Borowski, A. Nichtl, K. Kurzinger, R. T. Phillips, J. Feldmann -
Nano Lett. 7(9), 2753-2757. (2007)
We show how to change optically the distance between two protein-linked gold nanoparticles by Raman-induced motion of the linker protein. Rayleigh scattering spectroscopy of the coupled-particle plasmon allows us to compare the inter-nanoparticle distance of individual protein-linked gold nanoparticle dimers before and after surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). We find that low-intensity (50 muW/mum2) laser light in resonance with the nanoparticle-dimer plasmon provokes a change of the inter-nanoparticle distance on the order of 0.5 nm whenever SERS from the proteins connecting the nanoparticles can be observed.