The calculations of electromagnetic fields around nanoparticles embedded in biological media

Abstract

The goal of our project is to use computational methods, such as discrete dipole approximation (DDA) to study nanoparticles in biomedical photonics problems. Nanoparticle absorption and scattering are strongly affected by their shape, size, composition and dielectric environment. We focus on light scattering from nanoparticles embedded in biological or biocompatible media, such as water, glycerin and hemoglobin at erythrocyte hemoglobin concentration at concentration characteristic to intrinsic erythrocyte concentration. This method lets us consider complex refractive index of the nanoparticle and the surrounding medium as a function on the wavelength of light. We are interested in strong absorption and scattering around 800 nm that makes such nanoparticles potentially useful in biomedical applications, such as detection and curing cancer. Considering nanoparticles in living cells containing nanoparticles lets us understand light scattering from normal and pathological structures within biological tissue.