Depolarized light scattering from colloidal gold nanoparticles

We report the depolarized light scattering from gold nanoparticles of various shape and heterodispersity in aqueous solutions. The anisotropy measured experimentally and modelled theoretically for particles with average aspect ratio ∼1.2 and above 1.5 is presented. For elongated particles the anisotropy reaches the minimum value of about 0.5 in the spectral region 550-750 nm and it position corresponds to the maximum of the scattering component in the extinction spectra. We demonstrated experimentally the potential to distinguish plasmonic scattering from gold nanoparticles from background Rayleigh scattering which can find applications in sensing and imaging in turbid media.