ИСТИНА

Silicon nanoparticles are used to diagnose and treat various diseases by means of their high biocompatibility, bioavailability, biodegradability and low level of toxicity [1, 2]. In our work ensembles of nanoparticles formed by ablation of the porous silicon in ethanol and liquid nitrogen exhibit e ective photoluminescence (PL) with a peak falling into the diagnostic transparency window for biotissues (with a maximum of 720 nm for laser ablation in ethanol, 740 nm – in liquid nitrogen). Due to the relatively small size (less than 50 nm) of these nanoparticles they are promising to use them as PL markers for imaging of living organisms. The optical characteristics of the silicon nanoparticle suspensions fabricated by ablation in water and ethanol were studied by spectrophotometry (Fig. 1). It is revealed that the considered suspensions in distilled water and ethanol possess the light scattering coe cients enough to use the silicon nanoparticles as contrast agents in the optical coherence tomography technique.