Surface plasmon resonance enhancement of photoluminescence intensity and bioimaging application of gold nanorod@CdSe/ZnS quantum dots

Biological applications of core/shell near-infrared quantum dots (QDs) have attracted broad interest due to their unique optical and chemical properties. Additionally, the use of multifunctional nanomaterials with near-infrared QDs and plasmonic functional nanoparticles are promising for applications in electronics, bioimaging, energy, and environmental-related studies. In this work, we experimentally demonstrate how to construct a multifunctional nanoparticle comprised of CdSe/ZnS QDs and gold nanorods (GNRs) where the GNRs were applied to enhance the photoluminescence (PL) of the CdSe/ZnS QDs. In particular, we have obtained the scattering PL spectrum of a single CdSe/ZnS QD and GNR@CdSe/ZnS nanoparticle and comparison results show that the CdSe/ZnS QDs have an apparent PL enhancement of four-times after binding with GNRs. In addition, in vitro experimental results show that the biostability of the GNR@CdSe/ZnS nanoparticles can be improved by using folic acid. A bioimaging study has also been performed where GNR@CdSe/ZnS nanoparticles were used as an optical process for MCF-7 breast cancer cells.