The effect of metal ion doping on electronic band structure and charge carriers' effective mass of Ta2O5 were studied using hybrid functionals in density functional theory. PBE0 hybrid functional proved to be very efficient in predicting the band structure with less than 5% error compared to experimental data. The bandgap decreases monotonically as the percentage of the dopant increases. Furthermore, the indirect bandgap behavior of Ta2O5 was found to initially increase with doping before it decreases again to its original value of pristine Ta2O5. We found that high doping content or even mixing with another metal is required in order to modify the band structure of Ta2O5. The effect of doping on the crystal structure was also studied. XRD measurements show that the crystal lattice tends to expand upon doping with metals with larger atomic radius than Ta and this effect is more pronounced as the dopant content increases.
We conduct a comparative study on the efficiency and cell death pathways of continuous wave (cw) and nanosecond pulsed laser photothermal cancer therapy using gold nanospheres delivered to either the cytoplasm or nucleus of cancer cells. Cytoplasm localization is achieved using arginine-glycine-aspartate peptide modified gold nanospheres, which target integrin receptors on the cell surface and are subsequently internalized by the cells. Nuclear delivery is achieved by conjugating the gold nanospheres with nuclear localization sequence peptides originating from the simian virus. Photothermal experiments show that cell death can be induced with a single pulse of a nanosecond laser more efficiently than with a cw laser. When the cw laser is applied, gold nanospheres localized in the cytoplasm are more effective in inducing cell destruction than gold nanospheres localized at the nucleus. The opposite effect is observed when the nanosecond pulsed laser is used, suggesting that plasmonic field enhancement of the nonlinear absorption processes occurs at high localization of gold nanospheres at the nucleus. Cell death pathways are further investigated via a standard apoptosis kit to show that the cell death mechanisms depend on the type of laser used. While the cw laser induces cell death via apoptosis, the nanosecond pulsed laser leads to cell necrosis. These studies add mechanistic insight to gold nanoparticle-based photothermal therapy of cancer.
Novel methods and technologies that could extend and complement the capabilities of the prevailing fluorescence microscope in following the cell cycle under different perturbations are highly desirable in the area of biological and biomedical imaging. We report a newly designed instrument for long-term light scattering live cell imaging based on integrating a homebuilt environmental cell incubation minichamber and an angled dark-field illumination system into a conventional inverted light microscope. Peptide-conjugated gold nanoparticles that are selectively delivered to either the cytoplasmic or nuclear region of the cell are used as light scattering contrast agents. The new system enables us to carry out continuous and intermittence-free dark-field live cell imaging over several tens of hours. A variety of applications of this imaging system are demonstrated, such as monitoring the nuclear uptake of peptide-conjugated gold nanoparticles, tracking the full cycle of cancer cells from birth to division, following the chromosome dynamics during cell mitosis, and observing the intracellular distribution of gold nanoparticles after cell division. We also discuss the overall effect of nuclear targeting gold nanoparticles on the cell viability of parent and daughter cells.
The nanosphere lithography (NSL) technique is used to make periodic gold array of prismatic nanoparticles. We use the femtosecond time resolved double beam transient optical detection to determine the coherent lattice oscillation in gold nanoparticles. Coherent lattice oscillation is compared on gold nanoparticles of different sizes and shapes. The effect of changing shape on the oscillation period was studied. Different environmental effects on the coherent lattice oscillation are eliminated by measuring the oscillation of the prismatic shape before and after we anneal it to spherical shape of the same number of atoms. A large change in the oscillation period is observed which agrees with the calculated period using different equations for the corresponding shapes.
Gold nanoparticles with unique optical properties offer useful applications in biotechnology. In this article two applications that we have developed are summarized, in one they are used in cancer cell diagnostics and in the other they are found to have catalytic property for the NADH oxidation reaction which is important in ATP formations. By conjugation with anti-EGFR antibodies which specifically target EGFR that are usually overexpressed on most cancer cells, gold nanoparticles are used as a molecular contrast agent for cancer cell diagnostics using their both strong surface plasmon absorption and efficient Mie scattering properties. Au nanoparticles are also good catalysts for many reactions due to their high surface to volume ratio. Au nanoparticles are found to be the catalyst for the NADH oxidation reaction. This was studied by monitoring the effect of the nanoparticles on NADH fluorescence intensity and lifetime as well as the change of the surface plasmon absorption band during the reaction.
Infrared vibration spectroscopy appears to be a more powerful technique for diagnosis than visible or UV spectroscopy. Advantages of IR spectra include: 1) vibrational motion has a smaller tissue absorption coefficient than electronic motion, 2) scattering of infrared radiation has a lower cross section than visible or UV light, (these two facts allow deeper penetration of IR radiation) and 3) vibration spectra provide a better fingerprint of chemical groups present in cells than the unresolved broad electronic spectrum of biological molecules. In the present work, Fourier-transform IR spectroscopy was used to compare cultured human fibroblast and malignant fibrosarcoma cells. Significant differences were observed by comparing the spectra of the normal cells with that of the cancer cells. the PO2 symmetric stretching mode at 1082cm-1 in the cancer cell is reduced in intensity. These observations are similar to those reported previously by Wong et al in comparing the IR spectra of pairs of normal and cancerous cells from the colon and cervix. However, the observed increase in the relative intensity of the symmetric to antisymmetric CH3 bending mode are only found in fibrosarcoma and basal cell carcinoma. The decrease in intensity of the CH2 bending mode relative to that of CH3 mode was observed only for fibrosarcoma cells. This finding with paired human fibroblast and fibrosarcoma cells suggests that fatty acid chains or side chains of protein in the cancer cells are partially degraded leading to more terminal carbon. It is also possible that changes in the environment upon carcinogenesis induces a change in the relative absorption cross sections for the CH3 and CH2 bending vibrations.
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