Reply to Comment on “Multimodal coupling of optical transitions and plasmonic oscillations in rhodamine B modified gold nanoparticles” by I. Blakey

Abstract

In answer to Blakey’s comment concerning the role of solution absorbance on emission spectra of gold nanoparticles (AuNP) recorded under the resonance elastic light scattering (RELS) conditions of a synchronous scan with λ_em = λ_ex, we provide new evidence of a complex behaviour of plasmonic responses of functionalized AuNP down to very low concentrations, C_AuNP = 7 pM. We have demonstrated that there is no threshold on the RELS spectra and that from the lowest concentration under study there is a continuous shift of the RELS peak toward longer waves. Since the absorbance of a 7 pM AuNP solution is A < 0.008, there cannot be any direct effect of A on λ_max for the RELS peak and the observed approximately-linear correlation between λ_max and A_SP is therefore an expression of a dependence of λ_max on C_AuNP.