Magnetic Gold

Gold has fascinated for millenia: its unique properties and stability have made it valuable and sought after. And even though many currencies are no longer linked to gold reserves, the term “gold standard” has become synonymous with “ultimate reference”.

Yet there are still surprises in store: researchers from Dresden, Saragossa, Grenoble and Granada produced very small colloidal gold and found that nanoparticles of about 2nm were paramagnetic. The gold nano clusters were grown on a protein substrate layer and exhibited surprising magnetic properties. The magnetic properties were not present in differently prepared larger (4nm) nanoparticles, as published in ‘Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology’ and in ‘Physical Review Letters’.

To get a quick idea of the size of gold nanoparticles one can use Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), whether the particles are magnetic or not.

For more information, please click here to read the application note.