Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Commons^™

Embedded Gold Nanoparticles For Metal Enhanced Photoluminescence, Hasna Alali

Dissertations

Noble metal nanoparticles (MNPs) have attracted great attention in electronics, solar cells and catalysis. Their unique optical properties and biocompatibility makes them useful in biological applications like imaging, drug delivery, therapy and diagnostic. At the surface of MNPs the collective oscillation of free electrons resonates with a particular wavelength of incident light, generating the Localized Surface Plasmons Resonance (LSPR). LSPR results in absorption and scattering of incident light. Scattering results in reflecting photons and absorption leads to enhanced photoluminescence and quenching of fluorophores, if the fluorophore is in the vicinity of MNPs.

Most of the studies in this regard have …

Functionalized Nanoporous Carbon Scaffolds For Hydrogen Storage Applications, Christopher Carr

Dissertations

Recent efforts have demonstrated confinement in porous scaffolds at the nanoscale can alter the hydrogen sorption properties of metal hydrides, though not to an extent feasible for use in onboard hydrogen storage applications, proposing the need for a method allowing further modifications. The work presented here explores how the functionalization of nanoporous carbon scaffold surfaces with heteroatoms can modify the hydrogen sorption properties of confined metal hydrides in relation to non-functionalized scaffolds (FS). Investigations of nanoconfined LiBH₄and NaAlH₄indicate functionalizing the carbon scaffold surface with nitrogen can shift the activation energy of hydrogen desorption in excess of …

Size-Dependent Interactions Of Metal Nanoparticles With Fluorophores And Semiconductors, Liyana A. Wajira Ariyadasa

Dissertations

In recent years, nanoscale metallic particles have gained considerable interest due to their potential applications in advanced technology. Despite such interest, synthetic procedures that produce gram-scale, well-defined metallic nanoparticles with controlled size and shape, especially with diameters less than 5 nm remains a challenge. Our work has focused on developing synthetic procedures that produce well-defined platinum and palladium metal nanoparticles in the 1-5 nm size range. Thioether ligands were used as stabilizers and resulted in metal nanoparticles with controlled size. The nanoparticles were characterized using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), x-ray diffraction (XRD), selected area electron diffraction (SAED), x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy …