Nekane Guarrotxena
Institute of Polymer Science and Technology, Spain
Title: Rational clustering and fractionation of “SERS hot-spot†plasmonic nanoparticles
Biography
Biography: Nekane Guarrotxena
Abstract
Rational assembly of metal nanoparticles (NPs) is relevant for effective exploitation of structure-dependent material properties and for making nanostructured materials with specific activity in optical (sensing) and electronic (nanodevices) applications. Despite relevant improvements on solid surfaces, fabrication and organization of narrow size- and shape distributions of NPs in solution remain a challenge. One of the most successful approaches for their fabrication involves use of colloids and well-established thiolate adsorption chemistry. In this approach, dithiols can be used to bring together metal nanoparticles (Ag and Au) by virtue of metallic NP-sulfur bond formation. The general difficulty in this controlling aggregation methodology is that, the linking process is random by nature and is difficult to control, generating a statistical distribution of aggregated NPs. An alternative to non-ideal NPs assembly would be an effective post-synthetic purification method. In this presentation, we will focus on this approach for collecting efficient and intense optical SERS active nanostructure for novel applications from NP-assemblies pool. The contribution of the thiolated linker’s nature on the final scattering response from the engineered assemblies will be also considered.
