Quantitative nanometrology of binary particle systems using fluorescence recovery after photobleaching : application to colloidal silica

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Doveiko, Daniel and Asciak, Lisa and Stebbing, Simon and Shu, Wenmiao and Kubiak-Ossowska, Karina and Birch, David and Chen, Yu (2025) Quantitative nanometrology of binary particle systems using fluorescence recovery after photobleaching : application to colloidal silica. Langmuir. ISSN 0743-7463 (In Press) (https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.5c01287)

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Abstract

We present an application of Fluorescence Recovery After Photobleaching (FRAP) to measure the size of the individual nanoparticles in binary systems. The presence of nanoparticles with varying sizes was successfully demonstrated using a straightforward bi-exponential model and their sizes were accurately determined. Furthermore, we have demonstrated the benefits of pre-processing the data using a simple machine learning algorithm based on the gradient boosting machine and fitting the resulting curves to a tri-exponential model. This approach allows the accurate recovery of the sizes of each of the three components in a binary particle system, namely the 6 nm LUDOX HS40, 11 nm LUDOX AS40 and the free R6G labelling dye. Lastly, it has been demonstrated using molecular dynamics simulations that R6G adsorption to silica nanoparticles (SNPs) is indeed size-dependent, with larger constructs as the preferred target because of their higher charge and smaller curvature. The theoretical and experimental results were therefore consistent with one another.

ORCID iDs

Doveiko, Daniel ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0516-689X, Asciak, Lisa ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-8285-198X, Stebbing, Simon, Shu, Wenmiao ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1220-361X, Kubiak-Ossowska, Karina ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2357-2111, Birch, David ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6400-1270 and Chen, Yu ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2427-3559;
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