Silver nanoparticles have unique optical, electrical, and thermal properties and are being incorporated into products that range from photovoltaics to biological and chemical sensors. Examples include conductive inks, pastes and fillers which utilize silver nanoparticles for their high electrical conductivity, stability, and low sintering temperatures. Additional applications include molecular diagnostics and photonic devices, which take advantage of the novel optical properties of these nanomaterials. An increasingly common application is the use of silver nanoparticles for antimicrobial coatings, and many textiles, keyboards, wound dressings, and biomedical devices now contain silver nanoparticles that continuously release a low level of silver ions to provide protection against bacteria.
There is growing interest in utilizing the optical properties of silver nanoparticles as the functional component in various products and sensors. Silver nanoparticles are extraordinarily efficient at absorbing and scattering light and, unlike many dyes and pigments, have a color that depends upon the size and the shape of the particle. The strong interaction of the silver nanoparticles with light occurs because the conduction electrons on the metal surface undergo a collective oscillation when excited by light at specific wavelengths (Figure 2, left). Known as a surface plasmon resonance (SPR), this oscillation results in unusually strong scattering and absorption properties. In fact, silver nanoparticles can have effective extinction (scattering + absorption) cross sections up to ten times larger than their physical cross section. The strong scattering cross section allows for sub 100 nm nanoparticles to be easily visualized with a conventional microscope. When 60 nm silver nanoparticles are illuminated with white light they appear as bright blue point source scatterers under a dark field microscope (Figure 2, right). The bright blue color is due to an SPR that is peaked at a 450 nm wavelength. A unique property of spherical silver nanoparticles is that this SPR peak wavelength can be tuned from 400 nm (violet light) to 530 nm (green light) by changing the particle size and the local refractive index near the particle surface. Even larger shifts of the SPR peak wavelength out into the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum can be achieved by producing silver nanoparticles with rod or plate shapes.
Silver nanoparticles are being used in numerous technologies and incorporated into a wide array of consumer products that take advantage of their desirable optical, conductive, and antibacterial properties.