Dependence of the effective mass attenuation coefficient of gold nanoparticles on its radius.

Purpose: Several investigations are being carried since the past decade to use gold nanoparticles' (AuNP) suspensions as contrast agents (CA) for imaging in Computed Tomography. For this, the optimal size of AuNP has received considerable attention, which is addressed here.

Material And Methods: In this theoretical study, effective attenuation coefficient for a single spherical shaped AuNP is first calculated from the first principles, as a function of the nanoparticle radius 'r', with μ(E) being the attenuation coefficient of the material for a given energy E.