Use Ntracker, Ntherapy, and Nsense nanorods.  Nanorods enable scattering and absorption in the near-IR, transmissive to tissues, skin, and hemoglobin.  These nanorod products show no in-vivo cytotoxicity.  For photoacoustic imaging and optical coherence tomography (OCT), use Ntracker and Ntherapy.  Both rely on the smaller 10 nm axial diameter nanorod which exhibit higher absorptions when compared to larger nanorods.  Nsense nanorods are best for two photon fluorescence due to their larger scattering cross section.  Nsers for in-vivo SERS imaging and photothermal therapy are now available.

Use the Ntherapy nanorods for drug delivery.  They have carboxyl and amine polymer conjugations providing for facile conjugations to specific payloads.  They also exhibit different zeta potentials for tuning optimal cellular uptake.  Aspect ratios (different sizes) also are known to have an effect on cellular uptake efficiency.  Further, studies have shown that pulsed lasers can be used to change the shape of nanorods from rod to sphere, reducing the overall surface area thereby providing a means to release payloads.  For in vivo photothermal applications including viral and cancer targets, use Ntracker and Ntherapy nanorods.  Ntracker can be used for passive absorption applications, whereas Ntherapy can be conjugated to specific targeting antibodies. 

For in vitro applications, use a combination of spherical and nanorod products as labels.  The addition of nanorods as labels extends the ability for multiplexing multiple labels from 520 nm up to 750 nm.  Furthermore, nanorod products can be used in the near-IR, greatly reducing background fluorescence from incident light.  The use of gold nanoparticles in dark field microscopy is well known to be six orders of magnitude greater than fluorescence or quantum dot labels in a fluorescence format.  Further, scattering scales as much as the diameter to the fourth power, so larger gold is much better.  Our Gold Nanobeads come with amine, carboxyl, methyl, biotin, and neutravidin terminations.  Polymer coatings reduce non-specific binding and provides a covalent method for customer antibody attachments.  Use our larger sizes (60-100 nm) for optimal imaging results. 

Imaging includes dark field, phase contrast, and SERS.  For dark field and phase contrast microscopy, use our Spherical Gold Nanoparticles and our Conjugated Spherical Gold Nanoparticles.  Larger gold nanoparticles increase scattering to the square of the size.  100 nm spherical gold nanoparticles scatter 10,000 times greater than competitor 1.4 nm spherical gold nanoparticles.  Use our Microgold products to replace existing immunohistochemical techniques of silver enhancement of small gold nanoparticles since single Microgold  can be seen by light microscopy.

Heterogeneous assays include SERS and Dark Field Microscopy and include a solid substrate for analysis.  Diagnostics using spherical gold or gold nanorods enjoy greater than six orders of magnitude better sensitivity than fluorescence based assays.  Because gold nanorods can be tuned for peak scattering from 550 nm to 850 nm, more than six labels can be used concurrently with minimal overlapping signals.  Use our Gold Nanobeads that come with amine, carboxyl, methyl, biotin, and neutravidin terminations.  Polymer caged coatings reduce non-specific binding and provides a covalent attachment method for customer antibody attachments.  Our We offer Customer and custom conjugation kits for the user to covalently conjugate specialty antibodies to gold nanoparticles.  For SERS, our Nsers line of Raman labels are now available.

The most often used homogeneous techniques for gold nanoparticles are aggregation, fluorescence quenching, and surface plasmon resonance (SPR).  Aggregation has been primarily used with DNA diagnostics.  Gold nanoparticles with attached DNA aggregate when complementary oligos bind the gold nanoparticles together.  The result is dramatic loss of color as the gold nanoparticle scatterers aggregate and drop out of solution.  Our neutravidin Conjugated Spherical Gold Nanoparticles and Ntherapy and Nsense nanorods can be used for attaching biotinylated DNA.  Fluorescence quenching is a technique that has been used for many years that involves the fluorescence quenching of fluorophores that come in close proximity to a gold nanoparticle.  Fluorescence quenching extinctions are dependent on the size of the gold nanoparticle.  The larger the gold nanoparticle, the more dramatic the fluorescence quenching.  Our large Conjugated Spherical Gold Nanoparticles conjugated to amine and carboxyl polymers can be used to bind antibodies which can then be used for fluorescence quenching. 

For conjugating to oligos, use 5' or 3' thiolated, biotinylated, or amino labeled oligos.  Thiolated oligos may be conjugated directly to the gold nanoparticles, whereas the biotinylated require our Neutravidin Conjugated Spherical Gold Nanoparticles and amino labeled oligos may be conjugated to our carboxyl terminated gold nanoparticles via our EDC kit.  If your oligos are not conjugated, go to www.glenresearch.com for all three conjugation chemistries.

Spherical Gold Nanoparticles are often used for their chemical properties as sensors.  Upon freezing they aggregate and the solution turns clear.  Similarly in the presence of cyanide.  Conjugated Spherical Gold Nanoparticles are used for their SPR properties.  DNA attachments can be used as a sensor for smaller oligos that cause aggregation and color change.  Antibody-antibody interactions are used similarly for color change.  As homogenous sensors, their presence can be detected utilizing white light scattering, orders of magnitude more sensitive than fluorophores.  Coupling of multiple gold nanoparticles can be detected through SPR shifting.  Nsense nanorods can be used as very sensitive SPR sensors for antibody-antibody interactions.  Coupling end to end can result in SPR shifts that are sensitive to picomolar ranges.  Both Spherical Gold Nanoparticles and Nanorodz can be modified for SERS Raman sensors.

Nanorodz are used as components in near-IR filters, and for their high resolution nonlinear response in four wave mixing and frequency doubling.  Nanorodz are used in flexible membranes that when pulled align the nanorods creating tremendous extinction ratios for polarizers.  Finally, Nanorodz can be used for negative refractive index materials, better known as the "Harry Potter Cloak" device.  Nanowires provide high aspect ratios, perfect for polarizers.

Solar cells are always looking for methods to enhance photothermal conversion.  Nsol nanorods are perfect for spin coating using solvent.  Nsol nanorods come highly concentrated and can be added drop wise to many different types of solvents which then allow for spin coating. 

Our Spherical Gold Nanoparticles are manufactured using a patent pending method specifically for high monodispersity.  We are the only company in the world to offer Spherical Gold Nanoparticles with size increments of 5 nm from 5 to 100 nm.  Our Spherical Gold Nanoparticles are perfect for TEM, SEM, AFM, and for calibrating UV-VIS instruments. 

Nanorodz have been suggested for improving data storage on CDs.  Their reflectivity is greater than current hole technologies, and orientation can make them read/writeable.  Most importantly, Nanorodz are 1000 times smaller than hole technology, allowing for for the potential opportunity to store 1000 times the data on a single compact disc.

Platinum and palladium coated gold nanorods exhibit high catalytic activity and yet high stability. 

Gold nanoparticles have been used for environmental cleanup of VOCs.  Our bare gold Spherical Gold Nanoparticles can be used for the cleanup of solvents, VOCs, and other environmental pollutants.

Nanorodz have been suggested for use as inks and labels in security applications.  SPR tunable, specific signatures can be manufactured.

Our near-IR Nsers nanorods can be used outside the visible region as markers for cover tagging operation.

Nanowires provide up to 6 micron lengths.