Detecting spatial rearrangement of individual gold nanoparticle heterodimers.

The self-assembly of properly surface-modified gold nanorods and spherical gold nanoparticles in aqueous medium results in the formation of heterodimers, which show a unique optical scattering spectrum due to the plasmon coupling between the particles. While for the majority of the heterodimers, both particles are located at the substrate level, occasionally, some spherical particles are found to be located on top of the gold nanorods instead of the supporting substrate. Based on optical measurements on such individual heterodimers, it is shown that in contrast to the plain white-light scattering spectrum, the polarization-resolved spectra allow us to distinguish between the cases when the sphere is located on top or at the side of the nanorods.

Self-assembly of like-charged nanoparticles into Voronoi diagrams.

The self-assembly of nanoscopic building blocks into higher order macroscopic patterns is one possible approach for the bottom-up fabrication of complex functional systems. Macroscopic pattern formation, in general, is determined by the reaction and diffusion of ions and molecules. In some cases macroscopic patterns emerge from diffusion and interactions existing between nanoscopic or microscopic building blocks.

Preparation and characterization of two-dimensional metallic nanoparticle and void films derived from a colloidal template layer.

A novel and simple bottom-up fabrication method for the realization of metallic nanovoid and metallic film on nanoparticle (dome) array is presented and their optical performance assessed based on experimental and theoretical investigations. The structures are created by a simple, annealing induced replica formation of a template monolayer, which is composed of submicron particles deposited on top of a thin polymer film. Angle and wavelength dependent reflection measurements indicate the possibility to excite Bragg plasmons at the prepared structures.

Identification of Dewetting Stages and Preparation of Single Chain Gold Nanoparticle Rings by Colloidal Lithography.

Massively parallel nanoparticle assembly was carried out by means of colloidal lithographic experiments over a silicon substrate supported (sub)microparticle Langmuir-Blodgett monolayer, using high purity aqueous solution of PEGylated gold nanoparticles. The size of the polystyrene template particles in the monolayer was varied between 608 nm and 2.48 μm, while gold nanoparticles with diameters between 18 and 65 nm were used.