LptD-antigen system on gold nanoparticles: an innovative strategy in the nanovaccine development.

Nanovaccine development is a growing research field in which the development of new carriers and bioconjugation approaches is a priority. In this sense, this report describes for the first time, the development of a novel conjugate that consists of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) obtained by a one-step synthesis using an immunogenic peptide of the Lipopolysaccharide-assembly protein LptD frombacteria as a reducing and capping agent. The resultingcompounds were fully characterized and the results showed the high capacity of the peptide to form complexes and reduce gold ions.

Nanoscale influence on photoluminescence and third order nonlinear susceptibility exhibited by ion-implanted Pt nanoparticles in silica.

A systematic study has been carried out to investigate photoluminescence and third order nonlinear ultraviolet properties exhibited by platinum nanoparticles nucleated in a high-purity silica matrix. The modification in the characteristic photoluminescence spectra of the nanocomposites, ranging between 400 and 600 nm, was obtained with the assistance of a thermal annealing process that changed the average size of the platinum nanoparticles. The influence of temperature, between 200 °C-1100 °C, during the thermal treatment of the nanostructures was analyzed.

Anisotropic linear and nonlinear optical properties from anisotropy-controlled metallic nanocomposites.

High-energy metallic ions were implanted in silica matrices, obtaining spherical-like metallic nanoparticles (NPs) after a proper thermal treatment. These NPs were then deformed by irradiation with Si ions, obtaining an anisotropic metallic nanocomposite. An average large birefringence of 0.

Determination of the size distribution of metallic nanoparticles by optical extinction spectroscopy.

A method is proposed to estimate the size distribution of nearly spherical metallic nanoparticles (NPs) from optical extinction spectroscopy (OES) measurements based on Mie's theory and an optimization algorithm. The described method is compared against two of the most widely used techniques for the task: transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS). The size distribution of Au and Cu NPs, obtained by ion implantation in silica and a subsequent thermal annealing in air, was determined by TEM, grazing-incidence SAXS (GISAXS) geometry, and our method, and the average radius obtained by all the three techniques was almost the same for the two studied metals.