Absorption and scattering cross-section extinction values of silver nanoparticles

We determine the extinction values of silver nanoparticles as a function of their diameter for three different wavelengths (405 nm, 532 nm, and 671 nm) from the values of absorbance and their photothermal lens response. We show that for particles of small diameters (<50 nm) the extinction grows as the cube of the diameter for all three wavelengths. For larger particles the extinction determined from absorbance exhibits a sixth order dependence on the diameters for 532 nm and 671  nm. This kind of behavior is typical of scattering processes that should dominate for large particles. For 405 nm the plasmonic resonant absorption dominates over scattering making difficult the observation of the sixth order dependence even for particles larger than 50 nm. The absorption cross-section measured by the photothermal method does not show the sixth order dependence. It depends on the cube of the particle's diameter for all nanoparticles confirming the scattering free character of this absorption technique and validating the results of the absorbance experiment.