Influence of transient environmental photothermal effects on optical scattering by gold nanoparticles.

Transient photothermal phenomena in the environment of light-absorbing plasmonic nanoparticles, heating and evaporation, were shown to influence the optical scattering efficacy of such nanoparticles, when they absorb and scatter the light. The heating of the environment suppresses the optical scattering, while the evaporation enhances the scattering by the nanoparticles. These opposite effects have transient, local, and thermal nature and significantly (more than 10 times) influence the optical contrast of the nanoparticles as shown for gold spheres in water.