Plasmonic "pump-probe" method to study semi-transparent nanofluids.

Nanofluids have been increasingly used in a wide range of thermal applications. Although these applications can benefit greatly from investigating the behavior of nanoparticles under different heating scenarios, there is a lack of experiments that can achieve this. To overcome this challenge, an optical "pump-probe"-type experiment is suggested in this paper. In experiments of this type, a set of "pumping" nanoparticles are specifically selected to absorb laser radiation. These particles represent a flexible tool for volumetric heating. A second set of "probing" nanoparticles can be tailored to scatter a separate optical probing signal. This work presents a selection procedure for nanoparticles of both types. The selection procedure is then demonstrated for a specific example where the pump and probe wavelengths are of 980 and 532 nm, respectively. Gold nanorods with diameters of 10 and a length of 58 nm are selected as the "most suitable" absorbing particles, while silver nanospheres with a diameter of 110 nm are selected as the "most suitable" scattering particles. These particles are synthesized and shown to experimentally match the desired optical properties. Overall, this paper proposes and demonstrates an approach by which it is possible to design and fabricate particles for a wide range of optical studies in semi-transparent nanofluids.

[1]  Approximate solution methods for spectral radiative transfer in high refractive index layers , .

[2]  R. Siegel,et al.  Approximate solution methods for spectral radiative transfer in high refractive index layers , 1994 .

[3]  Michael Vollmer,et al.  Optical properties of metal clusters , 1995 .

[4]  Edwin L. Thomas,et al.  Optical forces and optical torques on various materials arising from optical lattices in the Lorentz-Mie regime , 2011 .

[5]  E. Sparrow,et al.  Radiation Heat Transfer , 1978 .

[6]  Robert A. Taylor,et al.  Nanofluid-based direct absorption solar collector , 2010 .

[7]  V. Timchenko,et al.  Indirect heating strategy for laser induced hyperthermia: An advanced thermal model , 2012 .

[8]  Patrick E. Phelan,et al.  Pool boiling of nanofluids: Comprehensive review of existing data and limited new data , 2009 .

[9]  E. Thomas,et al.  Radiation forces on dielectric and absorbing particles studied via the finite-difference time-domain method , 2009 .

[10]  L. Dombrovsky.  THE USE OF TRANSPORT APPROXIMATION AND DIFFUSION-BASED MODELS IN RADIATIVE TRANSFER CALCULATIONS , 2012 .

[11]  B. Draine,et al.  Discrete-Dipole Approximation For Scattering Calculations , 1994 .

[12]  Yassin A. Hassan,et al.  Discussion of proposed mechanisms of thermal conductivity enhancement in nanofluids , 2008 .

[13]  G. P. Peterson,et al.  Heat and Mass Transfer in Fluids with Nanoparticle Suspensions , 2006 .

[14]  J. Randrianalisoa,et al.  Modified two-flux approximation for identification of radiative properties of absorbing and scattering media from directional-hemispherical measurements. , 2006, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision.

[15]  Robert A. Taylor,et al.  Small particles, big impacts: A review of the diverse applications of nanofluids , 2013 .

[16]  Paul Mulvaney,et al.  Gold nanorod extinction spectra , 2006 .

[17]  E. Wang,et al.  Optimization of nanofluid volumetric receivers for solar thermal energy conversion , 2011 .

[18]  Z. Kam,et al.  Absorption and Scattering of Light by Small Particles , 1998 .

[19]  Leonid A. Dombrovsky,et al.  Radiation Heat Transfer in Disperse Systems , 1996 .

[20]  Robert A. Taylor,et al.  Nanofluid-based optical filter optimization for PV/T systems , 2012, Light: Science & Applications.

[21]  M. El-Sayed,et al.  Simulation of the Optical Absorption Spectra of Gold Nanorods as a Function of Their Aspect Ratio and the Effect of the Medium Dielectric Constant , 1999 .

[22]  Todd Otanicar,et al.  Socioeconomic impacts of heat transfer research , 2012 .

[23]  Xiaohua Huang,et al.  Gold nanoparticles: Optical properties and implementations in cancer diagnosis and photothermal therapy , 2010 .

[24]  G. Yeoh,et al.  A combined transient thermal model for laser hyperthermia of tumors with embedded gold nanoshells , 2011 .

[25]  Harish Ganapathy,et al.  Pool Boiling Characteristics of Metallic Nanofluids , 2011 .

[26]  Robert A. Taylor,et al.  Nanofluid optical property characterization: towards efficient direct absorption solar collectors , 2011, Nanoscale research letters.

[27]  W. Steen.  Absorption and Scattering of Light by Small Particles , 1999 .

[28]  D. Hirst,et al.  Gold nanoparticles as novel agents for cancer therapy. , 2012, The British journal of radiology.

[29]  Robert A. Taylor,et al.  Role of optical coefficients and healthy tissue-sparing characteristics in gold nanorod-assisted thermal therapy , 2013, International journal of hyperthermia : the official journal of European Society for Hyperthermic Oncology, North American Hyperthermia Group.

[30]  P. Jain,et al.  Calculated absorption and scattering properties of gold nanoparticles of different size, shape, and composition: applications in biological imaging and biomedicine. , 2006, The journal of physical chemistry. B.