PA Imaging Melts Gold Nanorods June 05 2017 by Drew Haser

Gold nanorods are widely used as exogenous photoacoustic imaging contrast. However, without protection gold nanorods change shape from pulsed-laser energy at temperatures below the melting point. This shape change results in nanoparticle absorbance shift and signal loss. 

This simulation from the Mira supercomputer at Argonne National Laboratory pinpoints the individual movements of nearly 2,000,000 atoms within a gold nanorod to visualize structure change as a result of light absorbance and heating.  

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