Turning Transparent Calcite Into Artificial Gold

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Israeli material scientists managed to create an optical metamaterial from vaterite – a mineral close to calcite and nano-particles of gold. This is a major breakthrough as similar metamaterials are usually made from toxic materials preventing them from being used in biomedicine.


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Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

An international research team led by experts from the Israeli Tel Aviv University just announced a major success in the area of nanomaterials. They developed an innovative nanotechnology that allows transforming nanoparticles of transparent calcite into shiny particles enhanced with gold. In other words, they changed transparent nanoparticles into particles that are visible. This may sound easy to do but it is a major breakthrough for nanomedicine that could provide us with many interesting applications for treating cancer and other serious diseases.

Roman Noskov and his coworkers created biocompatible particles of a metamaterial that has no equivalent in nature. On top of that, their approach is promising for wider use in biomedical systems as it provides the ability to create nanoparticles for sensors, photothermal treatment, photoacoustic tomography, bioimaging, or even targeted drug transport.

As Noskov says, their research is the result of an interdepartmental effort that connects physics, metamaterials, and bioorganic chemistry. With his colleagues, they created a metamaterial in the submicron size from biocompatible parts. And it’s exactly biocompatibility that is usually the problem with similar structures and its lack prevents using optical metamaterials in medicine and biology. This is because usually, you have to use toxic substances to create them.

On the other hand, Noskov’s teams' approach includes controlled infusion of gold nanoparticles into vaterite. Vaterite is a polymorphous mineral made from calcium carbonate. In a reaction with water at low temperatures, this mineral changes into calcite. The result of this approach a material called “golden vaterite” and it even has adjustable optical properties based on how much gold you infuse into it. Then, the particles of golden vaterite can even carry “loads” such as medicines or a fluorescent material.

The researchers have already checked the functionality of the golden vaterite for photothermal treatment and photoacoustic tomography. In the pilot experiment, they irradiated the new metamaterial with red and close to infrared light. This warmed up the golden vaterite and that is precisely what we need for biomedical procedures.

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