PNNL

Abstract

Utilizing intrinsic surface properties to direct and control nanostructure growth on a large-scale surface is fundamentally interesting and holds great technological promise. Reported here is a novel "bottom-up" approach to fabricating sub-15 nm Au nanoparticles on a nanostructured Ag surface via a liquid-phase chemical deposition by using localized surface plasmon resonance (SPR) excitation. A molecular thermometry strategy was employed to investigate the SPR-mediated photothermal heating of the Ag film on nanosphere (AgFON) substrate and measured the surface temperature to be above 230 °C, which led to an efficient decomposition of CH3AuPPh3 to form Au nanoparticles on the Ag surface. Particle sizes were tunable between 3 to 10 nm by adjusting the deposition time. Moreover, investigation of the deposition kinetics revealed that the Au nanoparticle deposition was surface-limited by the Ag substrate. This SPR-mediated chemical solution deposition (SPMCSD) strategy should be extendable to the deposition of many other materials for various applications.