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University of Massachusetts Amherst

Open Access Dissertations

Nanoparticle

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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Assembly Of Surface Engineered Nanoparticles For Functional Materials, Xi Yu Feb 2013

Assembly Of Surface Engineered Nanoparticles For Functional Materials, Xi Yu

Open Access Dissertations

Nanoparticles are regarded as exciting new building blocks for functional materials due to their fascinating physical properties because of the nano-confinement. Organizing nanoparticles into ordered hierarchical structures are highly desired for constructing novel optical and electrical artificial materials that are different from their isolated state or thermodynamics random ensembles. My research integrates the surface chemistry of nanoparticles, interfacial assembly and lithography techniques to construct nanoparticle based functional structures. We designed and synthesized tailor-made ligands for gold, semiconductor and magnetic nanoparticle, to modulate the assembly process and collective properties of the assembled structures, by controlling the key parameters such as particle-interface …


Tailoring The Surface-Coating Of Gold Nanoparticles For Bio-Applications, Partha S. Ghosh Sep 2009

Tailoring The Surface-Coating Of Gold Nanoparticles For Bio-Applications, Partha S. Ghosh

Open Access Dissertations

Functionalized gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) provide an excellent scaffold for numerous biological applications. In these systems, the gold core imparts stability to the assembly, while the monolayer allows tuning of surface characteristics such as charge and hydrophobicity. The nano-scale size and tunable surface properties have made them an ideal candidate for manipulating protein-protein/protein-nucleic acid interactions, and delivery of therapeutics. In this thesis work, it has been demonstrated how the surface coating plays an important role in achieving a desired goal. Using organic synthesis as a tool, the monolayer was tailored to afford useful particles with biocompatibility and the ability to respond …


Intermolecular Electron Transfer Reactivity And Dynamics Of Cytochrome C – Nanoparticle Adducts, Adrienne M. Carver Sep 2009

Intermolecular Electron Transfer Reactivity And Dynamics Of Cytochrome C – Nanoparticle Adducts, Adrienne M. Carver

Open Access Dissertations

Interprotein electron transfer (ET) is crucial for natural energy conversion and a fundamental reaction in the pursuit of understanding the broader problem of proteinprotein interactions and reactivity. Simplifying the complicated nature of these natural systems has driven development of biomimetic approaches. Functionalized gold nanoparticles offer simplified, tunable surfaces that can serve as a proxy to study the reactivity and dynamics of proteins. Amino-acid functionalized gold nanoparticles (Au-TX) served as a complementary partner to cytochrome c (Cyt c) and catalyzed its ET reactivity without altering the native structure. Redox mediator and EPR experiments confirmed that the redox potential and coordination environment …


Engineering The Nanoparticle Surface For Protein Recognition And Applications, Mrinmoy De May 2009

Engineering The Nanoparticle Surface For Protein Recognition And Applications, Mrinmoy De

Open Access Dissertations

Proteins and nanoparticles (NPs) provide a promising platform for supramolecular interaction. We are currently exploring both fundamental and applied aspects of this interaction. On the fundamental side, we have fabricated a series of water-soluble anionic and cationic NPs to interact with cationic and anionic proteins respectively. A Varity of studies such as, activity assay, fluorescence titration, isothermal titration calorimetry etc. were carried out to quantify the binding properties of these functional NPs with those proteins. Those studies reveal the prospect of tuning the affinity between the nanoparticles and proteins by the surface modification. On the application side, we have used …