APPLICATION OF PHOTOTHERMAL AND PHOTOACOUSTIC SPECTROSCOPY FOR THE MONITORING OF AQUEOUS DISPERSIONS OF CARBON NANOMATERIALS

Photothermal and optoacoustic spectroscopy in their state-of-the-art techniques—multiwavelength, scanning and transient—are used for complex investigation and analysis (chemical analysis and the estimation of physicochemical properties and size) of novel carbon materials—fullerenes and nanodiamonds—and their aqueous dispersions as promising biomedical nanosystems. The estimation of the cluster size and the possibilities to determine subnanogram amounts of both nanodiamonds and fullerenes by these techniques are shown. The comparison of fullerene solutions in various solvents, toluene, N-methylpyrrolydone and water, is made. The advantages of the photothermal and optoacoustic techniques over conventional spectroscopies and the current limitation are discussed. The necessity to develop robust models for transient and imaging photothermal techniques is outlined