Label-Free Optical Characterization Methods for Detecting Amine Silanization-Driven Gold Nanoparticle Self-Assembly

Fluorescence lifetime correlation spectroscopy (FLCS) is presented as a single-step label-free detection method for probing the amine silanization-driven spontaneous 3D self-assembly of freestanding gold nanoparticles (GNPs) in solution. Unlike the conventional methods of studying self-assembly, for example, UV–vis spectroscopy and electron microscopy, FLCS utilizes the intrinsic gold fluorescence. The significance of this approach is to amalgamate the measurement of optical and hydrodynamic size properties simultaneously to achieve a more coherent description of the self-assembly pathway. GNP self-assembly has two-stage kinetics. Electrostatic interaction drives the initial amine silanization, and this is followed by siloxane bond formation between hydrolyzed ethoxy groups of GNP-attached APTES, resulting in the formation of micrometer-sized superstructures. The self-assembly has resulted in a 5-fold increase in the fluorescence lifetime (FL), and the FLCS study has shown an 8- to 10-fold increase in the...