Abstract
Au nanoparticles with diameters of ca. 15 nm were synthesized according to the well-developed citrate reduction method. It was found that the nanoparticles tended to attach and fuse into each other to form chain-like structures with the removal of the stabilizing agents. UV–Vis absorption and HRTEM characterizations provided solid evidence for the fused features. On the basis of the HRTEM observations, we believed the decreased surface energy as well as the dipole–dipole interaction is responsible for the formation of the chain-like structures. SERS activity investigation indicated that the intensities of the b2-type bands have close relation with the concentration of the probing molecules, which further confirmed the chemical effect character of the b2-type scatterings.
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Acknowledgments
The authors are thankful for financial support from NSFC (20803002 & 50725208) and Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (No 20070006016).
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Zhang, DF., Zhang, Q., Niu, LY. et al. Self-assembly of gold nanoparticles into chain-like structures and their optical properties. J Nanopart Res 13, 3923–3928 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-011-0312-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-011-0312-4