Luciana Martínez, a doctoral felowship in CIBION, gave a talk entitled “Thermal challenge in printing gold nanostars”, during the IV Jobion Congress, an event where young researchers who specialize in bio nanosciences meet.
The researcher, member of the applied nanophysics group of the CIBION, spoke about optical printing, a technique developed in her research group that makes it possible to manipulate nanoparticles obtained from a process known as colloidal synthesis and deposit them on a substrate in a controlled manner.
During her speech, Martínez explained that one of the main objectives of her research group has to be with the improvement of this technique based on its automation and adaptation to different materials and forms.
Furthermore, she detailed some of the challenges of this research: "One of the main challenges of optical manipulation is related to the increase in temperature produced by light absorption, which can affect NPs either through the desorption of functionalizing agents or in their geometry due to thermal deformation."
Finally, Martínez described one of the main discoveries of this project: “We found that using an infrared laser (808 nm) close to the plasmonic resonance of the NSs it is possible to imprint them (the stars) and at the same time minimize the temperature increase generated by the restructuring at their tips, thus preserving their optical properties. In this way it was possible to carry out the controlled deposit of gold nanostars of different sizes.”
