Stability of semiconductor and metal nanoparticles in different media

Abstract

In today science, nano is an area that we are not familiar with which attracts the interest of scientists. With the use of nanotechnology, nanomaterials, which behavior very differently from the bulk solid, can be made. One of the capable uses of nanomaterials is bio-applications which make good use of the specific properties of nanoparticles such as semiconductor nanoparticles show strong emission of visible light for a long time. However, since the nanoparticles can be used both in-vivo and in-vitro, their stability is an important issue to the scientists concern. In this dissertation, we are going to test the stability of semiconductor and metal nanoparticles, i.e. cadmium telluride quantum dots (CdTe QDs) and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs), in a number of solutions including the cell culture medium and their behaviors will be illustrated in terms of the change in optical properties and degree of aggregation. After studying the stability of different CdTe QDs and AuNPs in different media, we found that MA-CdTe QDs are the best QDs for biological use among the set of tested QDs and both CTAB and citrate AuNPs are also very stable and suitable for bio-applications.