Synthesis of Core@Shell Composites with Gold Nanoparticles Trapped inside Ceramic Silica Shells by the Sol-Gel Method

This paper describes a sol-gel (SG) method for the coating of gold nanoparticles with uniform shells of amorphous silica. The thickness of silica could be conveniently controlled in the range of 10 to 120 nm by increasing the amount of water. Although spherical gold nanoparticles generally have a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) at a wavelength of about 520 nm, a spherical gold core with a silica shell offers a very highly tunable SPR wavelength depending on the thickness of the silica shell.