Gold nanorods: Synthesis, characterization and applications

This Account reports the synthesis and characterization of dendrimer-encapsulated metal nanoparticles and their applications to catalysis. These materials are prepared by sequestering metal ions within dendrimers followed by chemical reduction to yield the corresponding zerovalent metal nanoparticle. The size of such particles depends on the number of metal ions initially loaded into the dendrimer. Intradendrimer hydrogenation and carbon−carbon coupling reactions in water, organic solvents, biphasic fluorous/organic solvents, and supercritical CO2 are also described.

http://rcrooks.cm.utexas.edu/research/resources/Publications/rmc113.pdf

Dendrimer-Encapsulated Metal Nanoparticles: Synthesis, Characterization, and Applications to Catalysis

Gold nanorods have been receiving extensive attention owing to their extremely attractive applications in biomedical technologies, plasmon-enhanced spectroscopies, and optical and optoelectronic devices. The growth methods and plasmonic properties of Au nanorods have therefore been intensively studied. In this review, we present a comprehensive overview of the flourishing field of Au nanorods in the past five years. We will focus mainly on the approaches for the growth, shape and size tuning, functionalization, and assembly of Au nanorods, as well as the methods for the preparation of their hybrid structures. The plasmonic properties and the associated applications of Au nanorods will also be discussed in detail.

Gold nanorods and their plasmonic properties

https://web.uvic.ca/~agbrolo/ACA_GFS_MF_2011.pdf

A review on the fabrication of substrates for surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy and their applications in analytical chemistry.

Nanosphere lithography (NSL) is an inexpensive, inherently parallel, high-throughput, and materials-general nanofabrication technique capable of producing well-ordered 2D periodic particle arrays of nanoparticles. This paper focuses on the synthesis of size-tunable silver nanoparticle arrays by nanosphere lithography and their structural characterization by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The in-plane diameter, a, of Ag nanoparticles was tuned from 21 to 126 nm by systematic variation of the nanosphere diameter, D. Similarly, the out-of-plane height, b, was tuned from 4 to 47 nm by varying the mass thickness, dm, of the Ag overlayer. Experimental measurements of a, b, and interparticle spacing dip of many individual nanoparticles as a function of D and dm were carried out using AFM. These studies show (i) b = dm, (ii) dip accurately corresponds to predictions based on the nanosphere mask geometry, (iii) a, after correction for AFM tip convolution, is governed only by the mask geometry and the standard devi...

Nanosphere Lithography: Size-Tunable Silver Nanoparticle and Surface Cluster Arrays

The potentiostatic electrochemical template synthesis of nanowires (Ni, Co, Cu, Au, and polyporrole) in polycarbonate track-etched membranes with nominal pore diameters dN between 10 and 200 nm is ...

Template synthesis of nanowires in porous polycarbonate membranes: electrochemistry and morphology

Metallic nanowires are synthesized by electrochemical growth in nanopores of either track-etched polycarbonate membranes or anodized aluminum films. The potentiostatic growth is systematically investigated for track-etched membranes with nominal pore diameters dN between 10 and 80 nm. For this model system, the cross-section of the metallic wires is found to vary: the wire diameter, which is argued to directly reflect the pore diameter, is observed to be substantially larger in the middle than at both ends. Therefore, the pores are not cylindrical with constant cross-section, but appear to be ‘cigar-like’. Inside the membranes, the pores are wider by up to a factor 3. The aluminum oxide template has successfully been used to prepare a colloidal suspension of gold needles (anisotropie metallic colloid) by growing Au wires in the pores, dissolving the aluminum oxide and finally stabilizing and dispersing the ‘nano-rods’ in water. Visible near-infrared absorption spectroscopy reveal two absorption maxima caused by the anisotropy of these scatterers. The maxima can be assigned to a longitudional and transversal plasma resonance.

B. M. I. Van Der Zande

Papers

Template synthesis of nanowires in porous polycarbonate membranes: electrochemistry and morphology

Nanowires Grown Electrochemically in Porous Templates