Gold Nanoparticles Produced by Low-temperature Heating of the Dry Residue of a Droplet of an HCl Acidic Solution of HAuCl4·4H2O in a Low Vacuum.

An easy method is presented for producing gold nanoparticles. We show that by performing simultaneous low-temperature heating of a quartz glass substrate on which the dry residue of a 10 µL droplet of an HCl acidic solution of HAuCl4·4H2O is deposited and a counter substrate using Peltier devices in a low vacuum produced by a rotary pump, gold nanoparticles with sizes ranging from about twenty to one hundred and several tens of nanometers are produced on the counter substrate. In this study, an application of a gold nanoparticle substrate produced by this method to the sample holder for surface-enhanced Raman scattering analysis is also shown.