A single gold nanorod as a plasmon resonance energy transfer based nanosensor for high-sensitivity Cu(II) detection

Plasmon resonance energy transfer (PRET) has been widely applied in the detection of bio-recognition, heavy metal ions and cellular reactions with high sensitivity, based on the overlap between the plasmon resonance scattering band of nanoparticles and the absorption band of the surface-modified chromophore molecules. Previous sensors based on PRET were all implemented on gold nanospheres with scattering light in the range of 530 to 600 nm. In this work, a PRET-based nanosensor was developed on a thiol-di(2-picolyl)amine-modified single gold nanorod for the detection of Cu(2+) ions in aqueous solution with high sensitivity and selectivity. Compared to nanospheres, gold nanorods with tunable and wide plasmon resonance bands from the near-infrared to the infrared region exhibit promising potential for development as sensing probes.