Imidazole Based Biocompatible Polymer Coating in Deriving <25 nm Functional Nanoparticle Probe for Cellular Imaging and Detection

Although synthetic methods for high quality near-monodispersed nanoparticles of metal and semiconductor are well established, their conversion into various functional nanoparticles is challenging. We report here an imidazole based polymer coating that can be used in deriving <25 nm diameter water-soluble functional nanoparticles. The advantage of this coating method is that it is applicable to various hydrophobic metal and semiconductor nanoparticles, provides different chemical functionality and surface charge to the coated particle, induces minimum cytotoxicity, and can be used in deriving a bifunctional cellular nanoprobe for simultaneous imaging and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy based detection.