Nanoparticles have great potential towards optical investigations in biological tissues which include imaging applications as well as therapeutic applications. However the effectiveness of these techniques is greatly governed by the optical properties of the nanoparticles. In this context this work performs computational investigations in determining the scattering and absorption efficiencies of spherical nanoparticles for a variety of nanoparticle dimensions and compositions over a wavelength band ranging from 380nm - 1064nm. The simulation results show that the optical response of the nanoparticles greatly varies with the material property, the radii of the particle as well as the laser wavelength and the results obtained aids in the selection of suitable nanoparticle for specific biomedical applications.

Date Published: 26 July 2011
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 8001, International Conference on Applications of Optics and Photonics, 80010H (26 July 2011); doi: 10.1117/12.894522

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8001:
International Conference on Applications of Optics and Photonics
Manuel Filipe Costa, Editor(s)