Upon excitation, the silver nanoparticle plasmon absorption relaxes via emitting a series of low energy photons; essentially, the energy absorbed dissipates as heat. Recent research by Wei Gan, et al. indicated that if the silver nanoparticle surface was treated with thiols, the trapping sites were created thus providing another path for the excited state relaxation. The authors claimed that, upon the treatment, a 300 times increase in luminescence intensity resulted. In our work, we attempted another approach in making silver nanoparticles luminescent. We embedded nanoparticles in polyvinyl alcohol film with the idea that the contact points between the silver nanoparticles and polyvinyl fibers will serve as the trapping sites, thus resulting in a luminescent deactivation process. Indeed, the luminescent emission was detected with the maximum at 470 nm at room temperature (300K). At 77K, the luminescent emission maximum was detected at 490 nm, with about one order of magnitude higher quantum yield. Counterintuitively, the luminescent lifetime did not change with temperature. The half lifetime was found to be 2 nanoseconds. The experiments were performed on silver nanoparticles with λ<sub>max</sub> = 515 nm; the study of the effect of particle size on the luminescent properties is currently in progress.

Surface treatment and temperature effects on luminescence of Ag nanoparticles

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.