Au@organosilica multifunctional nanoparticles for the multimodal imaging

The increasing application of nanomaterials in biosensor and imaging sets a higher demand on the multifunctionalities of nanomaterials for obtaining multiple parameters of a same system under a same condition. In this work, multifunctional Au@organosilica nanoparticles with high stability were conveniently synthesized by direct hydrolyzing of 3-mercaptopropyltriethoxysilane in an aqueous solution in the presence of a Au core. Modification of the Au core with Raman reporters and the organosilica shell with fluorophore before and after the hydrolysis, respectively, produces multifunctional nanoparticles exhibiting Rayleigh scattering of the Au core, fluorescence signals of the fluorophores and surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) of the Raman reporters. The nanoparticles can be used as multimodal tracers for living cell imaging and related biological research.