Figure 1.

(A) Photograph of AuNPs on a glass slide being manually deformed with a glass stir rod. A glass substrate coated with AuNPs is placed on a slide holder fixed to the optical bench to hold it steady, and a glass stirring rod rolls over the AuNPs to flatten them. (B) A rolling pin, comprising of a ¼″ glass tube with a metal pin through it, is held in a mechanical test system fixture and rolled over particles deposited on a PVP functionalized ITO glass substrate. (C) Dark field microscopy image showing both undeformed AuNP (bottom, green) and deformed AuNPs (top, red) on a PVP functionalized glass substrate. 4X zoom in images of (D) deformed and (E) undeformed AuNPs. Representative dark field single AuNP scattering spectra from (F) deformed and (G) undeformed AuNPs. The squared AuNPs in figures (D) and (E) produced the spectra shown in (F) and (G), respectively. Scale bar is 20 μm. Spectra are offset for clarity.