Chapter 1. Gold and silver nanostructures of controlled shape

Abstract

Plasmonic properties of metallic nanoparicles are strongly dependent on the size and shape of these nanomaterials. Therefore significant efforts have been directed towards controlling the synthesis of new shaped and anisotropic metal nanostructures. This review presents some recent years advances in the production and potential applications of shape-controlled gold and silver nanostructures and their assemblies. Many interesting synthetic routes have been developed for a very wide variety of particle morphologies. These include: seed-mediated aqueous synthesis of gold nanoparticles of defined shape; preparation of 1D gold and silver nanostructures (e.g. nanowires); photo-chemical synthesis of silver nanostructures; synthesis of anisotropic gold nanostructures using galvanic replacement; preparation of silver nanostructures by cluster aggregation and some other. We also consider and discuss some recent advances in production and uses of gold and silver based nanoparticle assemblies. One of the point of interest is the fabrication of tailor-made nanostructures for specific applications. SERS is presented as an example for it benefits immensely from optimisation of plasmon resonance through shape-control. Over last few years there also were significant advances in the development of novel chiral plasmonic nanostructures. It is expected that these new chiral nanomaterials could find a range of potential applications in new plasmonic devices and chiral sensing.