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Resolving Artifacts and Improving the Detection Limit in Circular Differential Scattering Measurement of Chiral and Achiral Gold Nanorods
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    Resolving Artifacts and Improving the Detection Limit in Circular Differential Scattering Measurement of Chiral and Achiral Gold Nanorods
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    • Hao Li
      Hao Li
      Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Frontier Material Physics and Devices, School of Physical Science and Technology, Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu 215006, China
      More by Hao Li
    • Kyle Van Gordon
      Kyle Van Gordon
      CIC biomaGUNE, Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Donostia-San Sebastián 20014, Spain
    • Heng Zhang
      Heng Zhang
      Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Frontier Material Physics and Devices, School of Physical Science and Technology, Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu 215006, China
      More by Heng Zhang
    • Le Wang
      Le Wang
      Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Frontier Material Physics and Devices, School of Physical Science and Technology, Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu 215006, China
      More by Le Wang
    • Ningneng Hu
      Ningneng Hu
      Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Frontier Material Physics and Devices, School of Physical Science and Technology, Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu 215006, China
      More by Ningneng Hu
    • Luis M. Liz-Marzán*
      Luis M. Liz-Marzán
      CIC biomaGUNE, Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), Donostia-San Sebastián 20014, Spain
      Ikerbasque, Bilbao 48009, Spain
      Cinbio, University of Vigo, Vigo 36310, Spain
      Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Frontier Material Physics and Devices, School of Physical Science and Technology, Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu 215006, China
      *Email: [email protected]
    • Weihai Ni*
      Weihai Ni
      Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Frontier Material Physics and Devices, School of Physical Science and Technology, Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu 215006, China
      *Email: [email protected]
      More by Weihai Ni
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    ACS Nano

    Cite this: ACS Nano 2025, 19, 3, 3635–3644
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    https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.4c14015
    Published January 10, 2025
    Copyright © 2025 American Chemical Society

    Abstract

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    Circular differential scattering (CDS) spectroscopy has been developed as a powerful method for the characterization of the optical activity of individual plasmonic nanostructures and their complexes with chiral molecules. However, standard measurement setups often result in artifacts that have long raised concerns on the interpretation of spectral data. In fact, the detection limit of CDS setups is constrained by the high level of artifacts, to ±10%. We address this issue by means of a detailed theoretical description of changes in the polarization state when circularly polarized light is reflected at a dark-field condenser. As a result, we propose a modified CDS configuration based on sequentially placing the quarter-wave plate and linear polarizer within the detection optical path, to analyze the circular polarization state of the light scattered by individual particles. Extensive analysis demonstrates a detection limit of ±1.5% for the modified configuration, which is significantly lower than that for the conventional setup. As a standard system for CDS measurements, both achiral and chiral gold nanorods (AuNRs) were characterized using both setups. With achiral AuNRs, linear dichroism (LD) artifacts in the conventional setup are found to originate from LD present in the excitation light and are only present if anisotropic excitation is produced as a result of the misalignment of the excitation light to the condenser. With chiral AuNRs, CDS spectra recorded with the conventional setup depend on the orientation of the chiral AuNRs with respect to the x-axis of the microscope and are reversed compared to those on the colloid and measured in the modified configuration. The results are in good agreement with theoretical simulations for both configurations.

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    Supporting Information

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    The Supporting Information is available free of charge at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.4c14015.

    • Calculation details, calculated spectra, polarization states, schematic graph, extinction spectra, SEM images, measured and simulated spectra (PDF)

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    This article is cited by 1 publications.

    1. Charlène Brissaud, Swareena Jain, Olivier Henrotte, Emilie Pouget, Matthias Pauly, Alberto Naldoni, Miguel Comesaña-Hermo. Plasmonic Chirality Meets Reactivity: Challenges and Opportunities. The Journal of Physical Chemistry C 2025, Article ASAP.

    ACS Nano

    Cite this: ACS Nano 2025, 19, 3, 3635–3644
    Click to copy citationCitation copied!
    https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.4c14015
    Published January 10, 2025
    Copyright © 2025 American Chemical Society

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