AMI seminar: Thomas Bürgi

Room 170.048, Adolphe Merkle Institute, Marly

Thursday, November 19th, 2009  16:00 h

Gold nanoparticles: Preparation, organization and chiroptical properties

Prof. Dr. Thomas Bürgi

Institute of Physical Chemistry, Ruprecht Karls University Heidelberg

Monolayer protected gold nanoparticles have promising potential applications as building blocks for nanotechnology, as catalysts or as sensors. Very recently, the chirality of these materials has attracted the attention of researchers and application to chiral technologies is an interesting perspective. We will discuss the preparation of chiral gold nanoparticles and their chiroptical properties in the UV-visible and in the infrared spectral region. It is also demonstrated that vibrational circular dichroism, i.e. the differential absorption of left- and right-circularly polarized light, can be used to determine the structure of chiral molecules adsorbed on the nanoparticles.
We will furthermore discuss the preparation and the optical properties of organic-inorganic composite materials. In particular we will focus on the organization of gold nanoparticles in two and three dimensions, which is achieved by covalently attaching liquid-crystalline dendrimers to the gold core. In a similar way the properties of gold nanorods functionalized by thermally responsive polymers will be presented.