Gold nanoparticles of a certain uniform size are attracted to cancer cells. They can be heated using certain wavelengths of light to kill the diseased cells. In addition to cancer treatment, gold nanoparticles can be used in other areas, such as

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Image Analysis of Gold Nanoparticle Sizes Sophie
Li Department of Industrial Engineering
2013 Individual Research Project - Young Scholars
Program
ABSTRACT
GRAPHICAL VISUALIZATION
NANOPARTICLE IMAGES
Gold nanoparticles of a certain uniform size
are attracted to cancer cells. They can be heated
using certain wavelengths of light to kill the
diseased cells. In addition to cancer treatment,
gold nanoparticles can be used in other areas,
such as manufacturing advanced materials, energy
consumption. However, nanoparticle synthesis
needs to produce consistent results so that the
particles can be used for further experiments.
The images taken of the resulting nanoparticles
have to be processed and analyzed to determine
any discrepancies in size and shape. The study
uses an image processing algorithm to measure the
size of these nanoparticles. Afterwards, the
study compares histograms of each individual
image based on the nanoparticles radii in each
image.
RESULTS
MOTIVATION
CONCLUSIONS

• Analysis of nanoparticle self-assembly process
  for more statistically robust estimates of
  particle sizes and shapes
• Characterization of nanoparticle sizes to
  determine relation between sizes over different
  images
• Development of a consistent nanoparticle analysis
  program

• The program works well for clear images with
  great contrast.
• Images that are too blurry or have similar colors
  cannot use the program to calculate nanoparticle
  radii without further image processing.
• The Watershed segmentation method cannot
  completely separate particles under certain
  circumstances.

METHODOLOTY
FUTURE WORK

• Image filtering and removal of background noise
• Watershed image segmentation
• Centroid calculation and numbering of individual
  nanoparticles
• Area calculation of nanoparticles to determine
  radii
• Histogram analysis of radii distribution across
  images

• Further development of image segmentation
  processes
• Better image filtering algorithms
• Streamlining the program to make it run faster

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Young Scholars Program