RESUMEN
In this paper, we investigated the optical and thermo-optical properties of a-SiNx:H layers obtained using the PECVD technique. SiNx:H layers with different refractive indices were obtained from silane and ammonia as precursor gases. Surface morphology and chemical composition studies were investigated using atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and energy dispersive spectrometry methods. Spectroscopic ellipsometry was used to determine the optical indexes, thicknesses and optical bandgap of the films. The main purpose was to identify the thermo-optical characteristics of layers with different refractive indexes. Thermo-optical studies were performed to determine the temperature hysteresis of optical parameters. These measurements showed that after annealing up to 300 °C and subsequent cooling, the value of optical parameters returned to the initial values.
RESUMEN
The knowledge of the refractive index of a particle is important in sensing and imaging applications, e.g., in biology, medicine and process industry. The refractive index of tiny solid particles such as microsize particles can be determined by the so-called liquid immersion technique. This study deals with three different types of interrogation methods to get the refractive index of a particle in a liquid matrix. These methods utilize thermo-optical properties and wavelength-dependent refractive index of the particle and the immersion liquids, as well as, the classical method using a set of in advance prepared set of immersion liquids with different refractive indices. The emphasis is on a method to get especially the wavelength-dependent refractive index of microparticles and exploiting different wavelength-dependences of immersion liquid and a solid particle because identification of a particle is more reliable if the refractive index of the particle is known at several wavelengths. In this study glycerol-water mixtures served as immersion liquids to obtain the refractive index of CaF2 at several discrete wavelengths in the spectral range 200-500 nm. The idea is to find the maximum value of light transmission of suspension by scanning the wavelength of a commercial spectrophotometer. The light dispersion-based method is suggested as a relatively easy, economic and fast method to determine the refractive index of a particle by a spectrophotometer at several wavelengths of light. The accuracy of the detection of the refractive index is suggested to be better than ± 0.005 refractive index units.
RESUMEN
The fields of bioscience and nanomedicine demand precise thermometry for nanoparticle heat characterization down to the nanoscale regime. Since current methods often use indirect and less accurate techniques to determine the nanoparticle temperature, there is a pressing need for a direct and reliable element-specific method. In-situ extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) spectroscopy is used to determine the thermo-optical properties of plasmonic branched gold nanoparticles upon resonant laser illumination. With EXAFS, the direct determination of the nanoparticle temperature increase upon laser illumination is possible via the thermal influence on the gold lattice parameters. More specifically, using the change of the Debye-Waller term representing the lattice disorder, the temperature increase is selectively measured within the plasmonic branched nanoparticles upon resonant laser illumination. In addition, the signal intensity shows that the nanoparticle concentration in the beam more than doubles during laser illumination, thereby demonstrating that photothermal heating is a dynamic process. A comparable temperature increase is measured in the nanoparticle suspension using a thermocouple. This good correspondence between the temperature at the level of the nanoparticle and at the level of the suspension points to an efficient heat transfer between the nanoparticle and the surrounding medium, thus confirming the potential of branched gold nanoparticles for hyperthermia applications. This work demonstrates that X-ray absorption spectroscopy-based nanothermometry could be a valuable tool in the fast-growing number of applications of plasmonic nanoparticles, particularly in life sciences and medicine.