Among plasmonic applications, photoacoustic (PA) generation stands out due to the emergence of nanoparticle mediated PA imaging in recent years [1]. For metallic nanoparticle mediated PA excitation, thermal effects are crucial contributors to the production of pressure waves. However, the fraction of heat converted into mechanical work has dependency on both the thermophysical constants of the medium and the nanoparticle. In this work, we investigate the effect of optimized metallic nanospheres in PA generation by nanosecond laser pulses (7ns, 10Hz) for sizes 5, 50 and 100nm at 530nm laser excitation. The results are in accordance with the theoretical prediction, based on the analysis of the NP temperature rise.
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