In Situ Preparation of Plasmonic Gold Nanoparticle-Supramolecular Hydrogel Nanocomposites with Tunable Optical Properties: Correlating Theory and Experiments

GARCÍA SCHEJTMAN, SERGIO D.; MERCADAL, P.A.; PICCHIO, MATIAS; VEGLIA, A.V.; CORONADO, E.A.

JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY C

AMER CHEMICAL SOC

Lugar: Washington; Año: 2022

1932-7447

upramolecular plasmonic polymer nanocomposites are versatile softmaterials that hold great promise for many bioapplications as they combine thefunctional properties of inorganic nanoparticles with the dynamic nature of thepolymer matrix. Herein, we exploited the supramolecular chemistry and reducingproperties of plant-derived gallic acid (GA) to drive the in situ formation of goldnanoparticles (Au NPs) into poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)−GA hydrogels. The sizeand shape of Au NPs in the plasmonic nanocomposites were tuned from 25 to 221nm and from anisotropic to spherical, respectively, varying the Au3+ concentration.From experimental and theoretical simulation of the extinction spectra, it waspossible to assess the change of the average refractive index of the surrounding AuNPs in two Au3+ concentration regimes. The changes of the chemical environmentwere also tested by Raman and infrared spectroscopy characterization. Furthermore,the viscoelastic behavior of the supramolecular PVA&#