Mesoporous silica shell-coated single gold nanorods as multifunctional orientation probes in dynamic biological environments

Abstract

In this study, the optical properties of single AuNRs@mSiO2 are characterized under dark-field and differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy.Furthermore, we presented polarization-dependent, periodic DIC images and intensities of single AuNRs@mSiO2 at their localized surface plasmon resonance wavelength and investigated their use as multifunctional orientation probes in dynamic biological environments. Moreover, the real-time rotational motions of the AuNRs@mSiO2 on the HeLa cell membranes were tracked with millisecond temporal resolution.