Applications of carbohydrate-gold nanoparticles for volumetric flow measurements using an opto-acoustic technique

Gold nanoparticles with carbohydrate ligands attached on their surface have been synthesized and characterized with various techniques. The new nanoparticle conjugates have shown great potentials as a contrast agent for opto-acoustic imaging. Hemocompatibility measurements of human blood for the carbohydrate-gold nanoparticles have shown that the conjugates are feasible for in vivo testing. Preliminary quantitative flow measurements using the conjugates were also studied in this work based on the indicator-dilution theory. In vitro phantom experiments were designed and conducted, and results were discussed.