Functionalized Concave Cube Gold Nanoparticles as Dual probe for Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering

An innovative class of MRI CAs is represented by Gd-loaded gold nanoparticles. Differently from other nano-sized systems, the size, shape and chemical functionalization appear to affect the observed relaxation enhancement of water protons in their suspensions. The herein reported results shed more light on the determinants of the relaxation enhancement brought by Gd-loaded concave cube gold nanoparticles. It has been found that the role of the concave surface of these nanoparticles in the relaxivity is remarkable and it provides high contribution of second sphere water molecules. The specific shape of concave cube nanoparticles increases the relaxivity from 20.9 mM-1S-1 for spherical nanoparticles to 36.3 mM-1S-1. On the other hand, our studies prove that this special shape gold nanoparticles show high efficiency as a SERS probe. In the single-particle surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, the use of tunable plasmonic nanoparticles, having tipped surface structures, as being substrates revealed a highly feasible and promising approach to optimize SERS-based imaging and sensing applications. The concave cubic morphology has shown a remarkable plasmonic response, representing high sensitivity to the concavity degree. hence they can provide strong Raman signal which can be use in Raman imaging. Magnetic resonance and optical imaging are complementary techniques. By applying same nanoparticles as a contrast agent for both methods simultaniusly, screening total body with very clear identification become possible. This progress in imaging technologies associated with the advance of nanotechnology makes feasible the cancer detection and localization in its early stage.