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Cooperative interactions among CTA+, Br– and Ag+ during seeded growth of gold nanorods

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Abstract

We have carried out a comprehensive study on the formation mechanism of Au nanorods (AuNRs) in binary surfactant mixtures composed of quaternary ammonium halide and sodium oleate (NaOL). We identify the cetyltrimethyl ammonium (CTA)-Br-Ag+ complex as the key ingredient in directing the anisotropic growth of AuNRs. Based on the improved understanding of the cooperative interactions among CTA+, Br– and Ag+, we further demonstrate that AgBr, which is readily solubilized by the cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) or cetyltrimethyl ammonium chloride (CTAC) micelles, can be employed as the combined source of Ag+ and Br– for the preparation of AuNRs. The growth of high-quality AuNRs can be completed within 15 min under extremely low bromide content (0.1 mM).

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science & Technology, the SWC Center for Synchrotron Radiation Research, the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institu-tions, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21401135 and 21673150) and the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No. BK20140304) for funding support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Carbon-Based Functional Materials & Devices, Institute of Functional Nano and Soft Materials (FUNSOM), Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China

    Yong Xu, Lei Chen, Xuchun Wang, Jiaqi Yu, Yang Zhao, Muhan Cao, Zhouhui Xia, Baoquan Sun & Qiao Zhang

  2. Department of Chemistry, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA

    Xingchen Ye

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  1. Yong Xu
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  2. Lei Chen
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Correspondence to Baoquan Sun or Qiao Zhang.

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Xu, Y., Chen, L., Ye, X. et al. Cooperative interactions among CTA+, Br– and Ag+ during seeded growth of gold nanorods. Nano Res. 10, 2146–2155 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-016-1404-3

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