1. From solid gold to nanometric gold
One of the characteristics of nanoscience is that new properties emerge when the size of an object falls below a "boundary" of a few tens of nanometers. This may come as a surprise, because intuitively, we tend to think that the "whole" must replicate the properties of its constituent parts. But it is precisely this intuition that nanoscience seems to be disproving. Gold nanoparticles (NPs) provide a good illustration of the emergence of new properties as we move towards nanometric scales. Before going into more detail, this paragraph highlights three factors that cause these unexpected properties to emerge from the nanoscale: electromagnetic confinement, the predominance of surface effects and, finally, quantum effects. The body of the article will describe these properties in greater depth and illustrate them with applications.
The Ultimate Scientific and Technical Reference
This article is included in
Studies and properties of metals
This offer includes:
Knowledge Base
Updated and enriched with articles validated by our scientific committees
Services
A set of exclusive tools to complement the resources
Practical Path
Operational and didactic, to guarantee the acquisition of transversal skills
Doc & Quiz
Interactive articles with quizzes, for constructive reading
From solid gold to nanometric gold
Some gold nanoparticle synthesis processes
Bibliography
Websites
Or-Nano, CNRS Research Group
World Gold Council, official website
Gold Bulletin, the Journal of Gold Science, Technology and Applications (free access)
Events
International congress entitled "Gold" dealing with scientific research and applications of gold. The congress is held every 3 years. Gold 2009 took place in July 2009 in Heidelberg (Germany). Announcement of the congress relayed on http://www.gold.org .
Directory
Organizations – Federations – Associations (non-exhaustive list)
The Or-Nano research group's website contains a directory of French researchers from public institutions working on gold nanoparticles. See http://www.or-nano.org .
The Ultimate Scientific and Technical Reference
