Abstract
Nanomaterials have recently received an enormous amount of attention from the scientific community due to their outstanding activity relative to bulk materials. This increase in activity relative to bulk materials can be attributed to the high surface area to volume ratio associated with nanoparticles. Nanoparticles have found applications in almost every field of science. Currently there is significant interest in the development of nanoparticles as antibacterial agents. This work is paramount due to the increasing number of antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. Nanoparticles can be synthesized using various methods, each with their own advantages and disadvantages, and the method is often chosen based on the intended application. This review will cover the most prevalent method, chemical-based reduction of salts, and a fairly new laser-based method that holds tremendous promise in nanoparticle synthesis. We conclude with a comparison of the antimicrobial activities of materials made via each method.