Cell membrane and gold nanoparticles effects on optical immersion experiments with noncancerous and cancerous cells: finite-difference time-domain modeling.

Pilot results on the application of the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) approach for studying the implementation of the optical immersion technique for the visualization of single and multiple gold nanoparticles in biological cells are presented. We focus on two different scenarios considering single biological cells containing (1) cytoplasm, nucleus, and membrane and (2) cytoplasm, nucleus, gold nanoparticles, and membrane. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time the cell membrane thickness and gold nanoparticle effects on the forward scattered light from biological cells are discussed. The applicability and the potential of the FDTD approach for studying optical immersion technique enhanced bioimaging is demonstrated.