Self-assembled ultra-high aspect ratio silver nanochains

Abstract

A simple chemical route to fabricating highly linear, well-aligned and unbranched one-dimensional arrays of silver nanoparticles with ultra-high aspect ratios is demonstrated. Starting with a polydisperse nanoparticle material, the application of ultrasound was found to promote digestive ripening and induce a thiolate-driven self-assembly process. The assembly method discovered has been extended to other systems, with initial findings showing the successful templating of gold nanoparticles into chains using Cu(I)-thiolates. This opens the possibility of a generic route which can be applied to many nanoparticle systems. Copyright © 2012 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.