Synthesis and modification of gold nanorods for biomedical applications

Abstract

Research on nanomaterials has recently drawn attention of world scientific community due its highly interdisciplinary nature.1,2 The demand for the design of new nanomaterials and their self-assembled structures is ever interesting owing to their exciting properties3-5. Nanomaterials can be broadly classified into three categories, 0D, 1D and 2D depending on their dimensionalities.6 For example, quantum dots, nanocrystals etc. fall into the category of zero-dimensional (0D); nanowires, nanorods etc. are one-dimensional (1D) and grapheme, thin films etc. are two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials. The high surface area and quantum confinement effects of nanomaterials make them useful for various applications in drug delivery5,7,8, diagnostic applications9-11, sensors and detectors12-15, energy harvesting16, photo-electronics17, memory storage devices18,19, catalysis20 etc.