Paper detail

Electronic emission of radio-sensitizing gold nanoparticles under X-ray irradiation : experiment and simulations

In this paper we present new results on electronic emission of Gold Nanoparticles (GNPs) using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and compare them to the gold bulk electron emission. This subject has undergone new interest within the perspective of using GNPs as a radiotherapy enhancer. The experimental results were simulated using various models (Livermore and PENELOPE) of the Geant 4 simulation toolkit dedicated to the calculation of the transportation of particles through the matter. Our results show that the GNPs coating is a key parameter to correctly construe the experimental GNPs electronic emission after X-ray irradiation and point out some limitations of the PENELOPE model. Using XPS spectra and Geant4 Livermore simulations,we propose a method to determine precisely the coating surface density of the GNPs. We also show that the expected intrinsic nano-scale electronic emission enhancement effect - suspected to contribute to the GNPs radio-sensitizing properties - participates at most for a few percent of the global electronic emission spectra of the GNPs compared to gold bulk.