title: Does shining light on gold colloids influence aggregation?
abstract: In this article we revisit the much-studied behavior of self-assembled aggregates of gold colloidal particles. In the literature, the electrostatic interactions, van der Waals interactions, and the change in free energy due to ligand-ligand or ligand-solvent interactions are mainly considered to be the dominating factors in determining the characteristics of the gold aggregates. However, our light scattering and imaging experiments clearly indicate a distinct effect of light in the growth structure of the gold colloidal particles. We attribute this to the effect of a non-uniform distribution of the electric field in aggregated gold colloids under the influence of light.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India.
authors.forename: Susmita
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bhattacharya
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata, Mohanpur Campus, India.
authors.forename: Suda
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Narasimha
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India.
authors.forename: Anushree
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Roy
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kolkata, Mohanpur Campus, India, and King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Soumitro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Banerjee