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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Nov 19.
Published in final edited form as: ACS Nano. 2011 Aug 10;5(9):10.1021/nn2023045. doi: 10.1021/nn2023045

Figure 3.

Figure 3

Laser embedding of gold nanoparticles into a polymer layer. (a) AFM images clearly show sinking of an 80 nm gold nanoparticle into the polystyrene layer upon plasmonic heating at lower laser powers and crater formation around the nanoparticle due to the thermal decomposition of the polystyrene at higher laser powers. (b) Rayleigh scattering spectra show an increasing refractive index around the nanoparticle seen as a red-shifting and strengthening of the gold nanoparticle scattering. This shows how the embedding process occurs at moderate laser powers. The crater formation results in a blue-shift of the spectra, which occurs due to a decrease of the refractive index around the nanoparticle. The laser power densities and corresponding scattering maxima are shown in panel (b).